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Bar Chat

06/08/2017

Gennett's Big Night

[Posted early Wed. a.m.]

NASCAR Quiz: With Jimmie Johnson equaling Cale Yarborough on the all-time win list at 83, name the five above them.  Answer below.

NBA Playoffs

--Steve Kerr returned to the bench for Golden State on Sunday as the Warriors trounced the Cavaliers, 132-113, to take a 2-0 lead.  Kerr had missed 11 games (during which assistant Mike Brown went 11-0) as a result of unbearable back pain stemming from surgery two years ago.

The Warriors were led by Kevin Durant, 33 points, 13 rebounds, 6 assists, and Stephen Curry’s first postseason triple-double, 32-10-11.

LeBron had 29-11-14.

I was ticked because I kept nodding off and then I looked at the clock, 10:30 ET, and realized I forgot to flip on “Silicon Valley”!  I am such an idiot, as Roberto De Vicenzo would have said.

Next game, tonight, as the NBA Death March continues...unless you are a Golden State fan.

--In college hoops, in a most surprising move given the timing, Ohio State dismissed coach Thad Matta.  He supposedly wanted to walk away after just one more year, but why now, in June?!

Matta, in a joint news conference Monday with Ohio State AD Gene Smith said, “This has been the greatest 13 years of my life.  I completely understand it.  We mutually agreed to do this.”

Matta, just 49, had a 337-123 record in Columbus and led OSU to nine NCAA tournament appearances and two Final Fours.  Ohio State also won five Big Ten titles, but the Buckeyes didn’t make the Big Dance the past two seasons and the natives got restless.

But I have to admit I didn’t know Matta had health issues, like a bad back, a la Steve Kerr, and he wears a supportive brace on his lower right leg because of nerve damage, related to surgery back in 2007.

Matta said about returning to coaching, “Never say never, but honestly my whole focus right now is trying to get healthy.”

The thing is, he said just about two years ago, “I feel great...I’ve adapted...now it’s sort of like, ‘You’re going to limp and you’ve got to put on your brace,’ and away you go.”

So who will the Buckeyes be able to replace him with?  Who would leave their current position and that school totally high and dry at this stage?

Cincinnati’s Mick Cronin, 45, has guided them to seven straight NCAA Tournaments.  Butler’s Chris Holtmann has been successful in his three seasons there, going 70-31.  He’s also 45.

Xavier’s Chris Mack, 47, has made the NCAAs in seven of the last eight seasons.  Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall is another, but in this last case, boy, I wouldn’t leave if I were Marshall because he has everyone coming back from a 31-5 team and he’s already paid over $3 million per.

Matt Norlander of CBS Sports made an interesting comment, though, that has gotten me thinking; Ohio State being “one of the 15 most coveted jobs in college basketball.”

At first blush I thought no way it is, but then you start breaking it down and there really aren’t that many jobs that a coach just has to take...North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan, Michigan State, Oklahoma, UCLA, Indiana, Arizona (?), Notre Dame (?).  It starts getting tough.  You can’t say Villanova and Gonzaga.  Or any other SEC school.  Wisconsin (?).

So, yeah, I guess Ohio State, given the money available, alumni base, region, conference, is a top 15 job.

As for Duke, how attractive is that going to be after Coach K?  I just view Duke and UNC differently, forgetting the latter’s potential sanctions for the case of discussion.  Coach K. is Duke.  There is a mystique surrounding him unlike any other.  The amazing recruiting pipeline could dry up after a year or two.

Kentucky survives after Calipari because it is Kentucky; the biggest game in the state, gobs of money.  [They just might not be as successful.]

Anyway, just musing....

--LaVar Ball said his son, Lonzo’s, shoe that sells for $495 is “not that big of a deal.  It’s two things, stitching and glue.”  It seems like the Lakers are beginning to sour on taking Lonzo with the second pick in the draft, and for good reason.

Stanley Cup Final

Nashville rode their rabid crowd to another victory in their match-up with Pittsburgh, 4-1 on Monday that evened the series at 2-2.  For the Predators, goalie Pekka Rinne was spectacular in his 23-save performance.

Game 5 is in Pittsburgh on Thursday and then back to Nashville for Game 6 on Sunday.

But what was funny Monday was watching Charles Barkley thoroughly enjoy himself, after NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman smartly invited him to the game when he saw Chuck’s comments over the weekend as to how much he loved following the Stanley Cup.

Between the second and third periods, NBC interviewed Barkley and he couldn’t have been more effusive in his praise.

Also Monday, during an NHL-sponsored press conference with former 1984-85 Edmonton greats Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey, part of a celebration for being voted the greatest team in league history, Barkley snuck onto the platform and asked, “Wayne, I just always wondered, who is your favorite black athlete of all time?”

Without skipping a beat, Gretzky responded, “Grant Fuhr,” his former Oilers’ teammate.  Barkley laughed and Gretzky introduced Sir Charles as the “biggest hockey fan in North America.”

But during his NBC gig, once again Barkley said, “The playoffs in hockey have been amazing.  I’m not breaking earth-shattering news, our NBA playoffs have not been very good....There is nothing more nerve-wracking than Stanley Cup overtime hockey. It’s the craziest thing you’re ever going to see. I just love the sport.”

The NBA, despite strong ratings for Games 1 and 2, can’t be real comfortable with Barkley calling his own league out, and clearly loving the competition more.

MLB

--So Tuesday night I get an email from Pete M.  “Gennett?!  Do you know who he is?”

My first thought was I knew Pete was watching Yankees-Red Sox (I was playing stupid and watching the Mets), and I knew the Yankees didn’t have a prospect named Gennett they may have called up in an emergency, and I didn’t think the Red Sox had a player by that name, so I wrote back, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Pete then told me, just as the Mets announcers noted that Scooter Gennett of the Reds had hit four home runs and driven in 10 in a 13-1 win over St. Louis.  Oh, that Scooter Gennett.  I thought he was on Milwaukee.

So how does a guy who had three home runs in 117 plate appearances this season suddenly hit four in one game, becoming just the 17th player in major league history to do so?!  As Gennett himself said after, “It’s just short of a miracle.”  Heck, the guy even entered the game in a 0-for-19 slump.

Just two months ago the Brewers released him.

Gennett is the first Reds player to hit four homers in a game and the first since Ken Griffey Jr. to drive in 10.

The last player to hit four was Josh Hamilton in 2012 with Texas, while the last in the N.L. to do so was Shawn Green of the Dodgers back in 2002.

Scooter also went 5-for-5 for the game, 17 total bases, in what some are already calling the best performance ever.  Hard to argue with this.

And this, boys and girls, is why with baseball, more than any other professional sport, even if your team sucks, sometimes out of nowhere you’ll see something that’s never happened before, or very rarely, and it’s part of what keeps some of us watching through thick and thin.

--Baseball could use a good Yankees-Red Sox division race this year and Boston cut New York’s lead in the A.L. East to one game with a 5-4 win at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, as Masahiro Tanaka got shelled again, 5 innings, 5 earned.

All baseball fans in this area know the Yanks can’t win unless Tanaka gets his act together, yet now he’s 5-6 with an A.L. worst 6.55 ERA, having pitched to a 10.72 ERA his last five starts, all losses.

--Yup, it’s not looking like meaningful baseball in September for Mets fans, or meaningful baseball in July and August...or today, for that matter.

Mike Vaccaro / New York Post

“The odd, eerie part was the silence.  It was overwhelming.  It was deafening.  It was everywhere, even as the Pirates started stomping on the Mets like grapes in a vineyard, the lead growing, 2-0 to 5-1 to 8-1 to 11-1.

“This is when you can feel a season spinning sideways regardless of what the calendar says, when the anger is gone and the fury dissolves and a crowd of 35,323 can’t even bring itself to boo.

“Stepford Stadium.

“That’s bad in late September.  It’s death in early June.”

By the way, with Sunday’s 11-1 loss at Citi Field, the cumulative score for the Mets on Sundays this season is Opponents 78, Mets 37.

The Mets have also lost nine straight to end a series.  A 4-12 record against teams with a winning record.

So New York then traveled to Texas for a two-game set with the Rangers and ‘ace’ Jacob deGrom was shelled a second straight start, 10-8, giving up 8 runs in 4 innings after giving up 7 in 4 his last start.  DeGrom suddenly has a 4.75 ERA as the 24-32 Mets fade into oblivion, 12 ½ back of first-place Washington (who received 7 innings of 14-strikeout ball from Max Scherzer last night as the Nats beat the Dodgers in L.A., 2-1).

--I didn’t have a chance last time to write of the death of former major leaguer Jim Piersall, 87. The outfielder played from 1952-67 with numerous teams (along with a cup of coffee in 1950), hitting .272, with 104 home runs and 591 RBIs.  He made two All-Star squads and had a Gold Glove while with Boston, but this isn’t even half of his story.

Piersall was perhaps the first professional athlete to bare his soul about his struggles with mental illness, which he wrote of in his book “Fear Strikes Out,” later made into a movie of the same title with Anthony Perkins and Karl Malden.

Piersall’s on-field antics were legendary, but they included furious arguments with umpires, and a total break down when he learned one day he wasn’t playing, getting into a fistfight with the Yankees’ Billy Martin at Fenway Park, followed minutes later with a scuffle with a teammate.

“Almost everybody except the umpires and the Red Sox thought I was a riot,” Piersall said in his 1955 autobiography.  “My wife knew I was sick, yet she was helpless to stop my mad rush towards a mental collapse.  The Red Sox couldn’t figure out how to handle me.  I was a problem child.”

He played 56 games in the majors before being admitted to a mental hospital with what was diagnosed as bipolar disorder.  His family said he suffered a nervous breakdown. Piersall wrote in his book he had almost no memory of the season or his time in the hospital.  He returned to the majors in 1953 “sound and healthy” thanks to “shock treatments, faith, a wonderful wife, a fine doctor and loyal friends.”

Piersall wrote: “I want the world to know that people like me who have returned from the half-world of mental oblivion are not forever contaminated.”

Piersall grew up in Waterbury, Conn., and he recalled his father had a quick temper and was often harsh and demanding, while his mother had intermittent stays in mental hospitals.

After the Red Sox signed him in 1948, Piersall exhibited signs of being a bit unstable, and by the time he appeared for spring training in 1952, he became convinced the Red Sox hoped he would fail as he was switched from the outfield to shortstop.

As for the movie, Piersall wrote in his 1985 memoir that he hated it.  Perkins, he said, looked foolish trying to play baseball.  [Well show me a baseball movie where the actor looked good?  Some of them are downright comical.]  He was also upset the movie made it look like he blamed his father (Karl Malden) for his breakdown.

College Baseball Championship...one step from World Series

Wake Forest fans have a reason to be psyched.  For the first time since 1999, the Deacs are in the Super Regionals (Sweet 16), having won their regional last weekend.  So the matchups this coming weekend....

Oregon State v. Vanderbilt...there is a run on Beaverwear...
Texas A&M v. Davidson (great story)
Long Beach State v. Cal State-Fullerton
Louisville v. Kentucky

Florida State v. Sam Houston State
TCU v. Missouri State
LSU v. Mississippi State
Florida v. Wake Forest

The ACC’s North Carolina, Clemson, NC State and Virginia flamed out.

Golf Balls

--50-year-old Wisconsin native Steve Stricker, who had applied for an exemption to the U.S. Open at Erin Hills (Wis.) and was denied, qualified by shooting 67-65 at a sectional qualifier, earning medalist honors the other day.  [An exemption is normally granted by the USGA only for past Open winners, and he wasn’t bitching about it, he just had to ask since he’s meant so much to the state and the sport.]

Stewart Cink also earned a spot in another sectional qualifier.

--I have to give Jason Dufner credit.  He hasn’t been the most popular golfer the past few years due to his surly behavior and refusal to cooperate with the press, but he was most talkative after winning the Memorial Tournament, and his weekend performance was truly remarkable.  The 77 in the third round, going from five up to four behind, followed by a closing 4-under-par 68.

“I always take a lot of pride in kind of being a fighter, trying to come back,” said Dufner, 40.

He’s also always been known as a superb shot-maker, but awful putter, and last week his flat stick was just fine.

“I’m pumped to be in the mix again,” Dufner said.  “It’s been a good year so far, but this has made it nice.”

Dufner is the first player to win a PGA Tour event since Nick Falso to shoot 77 or higher in their third round and go on to win; Faldo doing that in the 1989 Masters...a tradition unlike any other, on CBS....

NASCAR

--Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. is set to make history at NASCAR’s top level this weekend at Pocono Raceway.  Wallace will become the first African-American to take the wheel since 2006, replacing the injured Aric Almirola in the No. 43 Ford, according to a Richard Petty Motor sports team release.

“Driving the famed 43 car is an unbelievable opportunity for any race car driver,” Wallace, a graduate of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program, said.  “...I am ready to represent this organization, help the 43 team get the best results possible and prove that I belong at this level.”

Wallace, just 23, has been competing on the NASCAR Xfinity and Truck series for the past five years.  He has won five Camping World Truck Series races, and when he took the checkered flag at Martinsville in 2013, he became just the second African-American driver to win a NASCAR national level race; Hall of Famer Wendell Scott being the first, earning a Cup Series victory on December 1, 1963.

French Open  

I apologize for not writing much about this, but for starters, I told you how embarrassing it was that the No. 1 seed for the women, ol’ what’s her name, lost in the first round, and then Venus Williams went down, and now we have a bunch of women left I barely heard of, and don’t give a damn about, so ask me if I’ll catch a single minute of their action in this Serena-less major.

[Venus was making her record 20th appearance at the Open.]

On the men’s side, however, we still have 1 Andy Murray, 2 Novak Djokovic, 3 Stan Wawrinka and 4 Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals, though as you know Roger Federer didn’t play here due to injury.  At least the final should be good.

NFL/CFB Bits

--As I’ve been writing since the NFL season ended, Jets fans know what the deal is when it comes to 2017...tank for one of the prime quarterbacks that will be in the 2018 NFL Draft.

It’s been clear that the Jets, with the worst current QB situation in the league, weren’t going to win more than three games and us fans would be more than accepting of this, but then the team made two decisions that virtually ensure we won’t win more than two by releasing veteran linebacker David Harris, a solid player for years who still has game, and veteran receiver Eric Decker, who appears to be healthy after offseason surgery.  Decker was told he’ll be released or traded.

The thing is, these moves could have been made months ago to save the $11 million in cap space and instead the classless Jets told Harris 45 minutes after he addressed the media following a voluntary workout.

--On Tuesday, a district court judge signed arrest warrants for three Michigan State football players, one day after the county prosecutor announced plans to charge them with sexual assault.

The three are accused of assaulting a woman at an on-campus apartment back on Jan. 16, 2017.  The details are atrocious, with police finding video on one of the player’s cellphones as well as damning text messages.

The three were indefinitely suspended from the football program and a football staff member was suspended for not telling his bosses what he learned from conversations with the players.

Four of the 20 players who joined Michigan State’s football team as freshmen in 2016 have now been charged with sexual assault.

--Variety reported that Al Pacino will play Joe Paterno in an HBO movie on his role in the Jerry Sandusky case.  I imagine the Paterno family is thrilled.

Stuff

--Brad K. passed the following on from Katie French of the Daily Mail:

“Neil Cave had been staying in a luxury flat in Simon’s Town, South Africa, when he discovered (his Airbnb apartment) was being trashed by seven baboons....

“Mr. Cave revealed he had to call the police to get the baboons to leave – but despite the mess and chaos, they only broke one coffee cup.

“An alarmed Mr. Cave hilariously recorded the moment he discovered them inside the property.

“Speaking to the camera, he said: ‘These baboons are trashing the house.  Inside outside, they are f****** everywhere.’

“On the floor a huge baboon was sitting demolishing a loaf of bread while on the table a health-conscious primate tucked into a bowl of salad.”

Top 3 songs for the week 6/10/67: #1 “Respect” (Aretha Franklin) #2 “Groovin’” (The Young Rascals)  #3 “I Got Rhythm” (The Happenings)...and...#4 “Release Me (And Let Me Love Again)” (Engelbert Humperdinck)  #5 “Him Or Me – What’s It Gonna Be?” (Paul Revere and The Raiders)  #6 “Somebody To Love” (Jefferson Airplane)  #7 “She’d Rather Be With Me” (The Turtles)  #8 “Little Bit O’Soul” (The Music Explosion)  #9 “All I Need” (The Temptations)  #10 “Creeque Alley” (The Mamas & The Papas)

NASCAR Quiz Answer: All-time Cup series win list....

Richard Petty 200*
David Pearson 105
Jeff Gordon 93
Bobby Allison 84
Darrell Waltrip 84
Cale Yarborough 83
Jimmie Johnson 83
Dale Earnhardt 76

*Petty’s record is a bit deceiving, as great as the King was.  Back in his day there were a lot of more races, sometimes multiple ones on weekends.  Some seasons had 48. 

David Pearson actually had a better winning percentage, 18.29%, 105 in 574 starts.  Petty was at 16.89% in 1,184 starts.

Next Bar Chat, Monday.

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