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Bar Chat

04/17/2017

It's Playoff Time

[Posted late Sunday night...Folks, I had family obligations today and it was difficult returning home to get everything in, if you catch my drift.  Hope you all had a great Easter.]

Baseball Quiz: Who are the five recipients of the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence, enshrined in the Hall of Fame, who also played in the major leagues? Answer below.

NBA Playoffs

--Our condolences to Boston Celtics star Isaiah Thomas, whose sister died in a car crash early Saturday in Washington state on I-5 around 5 a.m., when her car slowly veered off the road, according to KIRO7, and hit a pole.  She died instantly.  From the movement of the car, “very casually,” it appears she may have fallen asleep, according to authorities.

Thomas was notified of his sister’s death following the Celtics’ afternoon practice, Saturday, as they prepared for their postseason opener against the Bulls in Boston on Sunday.

Alas, Chicago prevailed, 106-102, despite Thomas’ 33 points, though he had six turnovers.  Boston will regroup for Game 2.

Also Sunday, Washington won its opener against Atlanta, 114-107, as John Wall had 32 points and 14 rebounds.  Golden State defeated your, OK, my, Portland Trail Blazers 121-109.

--I have said this seemingly every year, but it’s a shame Toronto Raptors fans, among the best in all of North America, have had virtually zero playoff success to cheer about.  Last season, for example, was the first since 2000-01 that the team got out of the first round, advancing to the Eastern Conference finals before succumbing to the Cavs. Since ’01, five times they have lost in the opening round.

And so Saturday they lost at home to the Bucks, 97-83, as Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo had a career playoff-high 28 points.  The Raptors dropped to 1-11 in playoff series openers and 0-9 in Game 1 of a first-round series.

Also Saturday, Cleveland edged Indiana 109-108, San Antonio beat Memphis 111-82, and the Jazz won their opener in Los Angeles against the Clippers as that great closer, Joe Johnson, hit a buzzer beater for the victory, his 8th such shot in the last 10 seasons, more than any other in the league over that time.  When Johnson was a Net, we got used to seeing his greatness, Johnson having hit far more shots that also tied at the buzzer or put his team ahead in the final minute of play.  He is indeed Mr. Clutch.

--And then there is the Knicks and team president Phil Jackson.

Understand that our fearless leader, cough cough, hadn’t spoken to the press since September, until Friday, preferring to communicate through inane tweets and grunts.

So he met with the media to wrap up another lovely season, 31-51, and for the umpteenth time he proceeded to trash Carmelo Anthony.

“I think the direction with our team is that he would be better off somewhere else,” Jackson said.  Earlier this year, Anthony told Jackson that he wanted to remain with the Knicks.

Jackson seemed to toy with the idea of trading Melo all season, but Jackson, in signing Anthony to a five-year, $124 million deal that still has two more years to run, stupidly gave Melo a no-trade clause.

Look, all Knicks fans know that Carmelo Anthony’s best days are behind him and that he plays little defense and is pretty much just a jump shooter, with the offense stalling when he gets the ball.

We get that.  But Jackson trashes the guy and then in the same sentence says he “wants a valuable player in return.”  What NBA GM in his right mind, knowing how desperate Jackson is to get rid of Anthony, is going to give the Knicks more than a stiff back?!  [Like literally a stiff with a sore back.]

Harvey Araton / New York Times

“Dressed nattily in a sports jacket and slacks for the rarest of occasions, Phil Jackson met the news media on Friday afternoon and, as we say in the trade, he made deadline.

“ ‘I don’t know who else has to talk in this business, who else is relegated to talking in front of the press,’ Jackson said, casting doubt on the notion that the team’s president should address the public frequently.  ‘There’s some fan things, but you guys aren’t fans, right?’

“He coined a phrase in reference to some of the coverage of the Knicks: ‘hate news.’  Still, through the local reporters he had shunned since September, Jackson finally addressed that abused but committed sect of consumer known as the Knicks season-ticket holder, 11 days before a cutoff date for renewal....

“After all these months – a period that brought 51 more losses, for a total of 166 against 80 victories across Jackson’s three full seasons – there were so many inquiries to raise during his 49-minute allotment, in which poor Carmelo Anthony was lambasted as everything but Crooked Carmelo.”

Jackson has had to admit that rising stars like Porzingis and Willy Hernangomez, along with the coming lottery draft pick, won’t improve enough over the last two years of his own contract to produce a big winner, so he said this:

“That’s not a concern of mine.  We understand that a lot of these people are young people – it’s going to take three or four years for them to develop.  So in that process, it may be beyond my tenure here, in which the team becomes vibrant, competitive, has a chance to be good beyond just being in the playoffs.

“That’s O.K. with me. I didn’t come here just to particularly win a championship but to do things that were directed by my instructions by (owner Jim) Dolan – let’s have something that is identifiable in who we are and how we play.”

Are you freakin’ kidding me?!

Araton:

“So Jackson, the man who might wear all of his championship rings if he had 11 fingers, did not ‘come here just to particularly win a championship?’  O.K.,  whatever.  But in saying he ‘can’t go back and regret it,’ Jackson all but admitted he had blundered out of the gate by staking his presidency on Anthony and, worse, by handing him that insane no-trade clause.”

Oh, and Jackson still insists his triangle offense didn’t work only because “we faced resistance at the top,” then added, “Carmelo’s been great.”

Mike Vaccaro / New York Post

“When Phil Jackson borrows from Harry S. Truman – one President to another – and says, in his annual address to Knicks fans, ‘I never took a jump shot, never made a substitution but the buck stops here,’ he is, of course, bastardizing the famous saying that adorned Truman’s desk and often tumbled off his tongue....

“In an address to the National War College on Dec. 19, 1952, a month and a day before he would leave office, Truman said:

“ ‘You know, it’s easy for the Monday morning quarterback to say what the coach should have done, after the game is over. But when the decision is up before you – and on my desk I have a motto which says, ‘The Buck Stops Here’ – the decision has to be made.’

“Not in Phil Jackson’s world, it doesn’t.  In that sanctimonious sanctuary, Jackson can steal a phrase that sounds good, recite it early in a 49-minute press conference, and then spend the final 48 or so minutes proving he has absolutely no intention of adhering to either its meaning or its spirit.

“So after declaring the buck stopped with him, Jackson immediately proceeded to pass the buck to his coach, Jeff Hornacek; and to his outgoing point guard, Derrick Rose; and to his owner, James Dolan; and to Knicks fans themselves; and to the devil media; and (somehow) to the Chicago Bulls, entering Year 19 of their own rebuild; and to the silent, egregious forces that caused the injury-prone, 31-year-old center he signed to spend his first year as a Knick injured and aging.

“And, of course, to Carmelo Anthony.

“Those are a lot of passed bucks, not nearly as many wasted bucks as Dolan already has spent on Jackson, but, then, he still has two more years to catch up.  Maybe the next time he addresses his public, in another 365 days, he can paraphrase John F. Kennedy: ‘Ask not what the Knicks can do for you, ask what the Knicks can do for me and my legacy as a genius.’

“The one thing that is clear from Jackson’s clumsy valedictory Friday is this: There is a better chance Richie Guerin will be a Knick at the start of training camp than Anthony.

“ ‘We have not been able to win with him on the court at this time,’ Jackson said.

“ ‘It’s probably better to have him somewhere he can win a championship,’ he added.

“More: ‘Obviously, this hasn’t worked out, this partnership together.  It didn’t click with this team.’

“Lastly: ‘Holding the ball is not a criticism. That’s what he does.  That’s pure fact.’”

But once Melo is gone, who will Jackson identify as the fall guy?

Vaccaro: “His cover will be gone, his favorite voodoo doll in a different city.  Without Melo to blame all of his troubles on, it will be harder to invent strawmen.”

Mike Lupica / New York Daily News

“Phil Jackson says that Carmelo Anthony would be better off somewhere else and at least Jackson is finally right about something in New York other than Kristaps Porzingis.  If Jackson is going to stay here for two more years and finish off the kind of bad contract he generally awards to coaches and players, then Anthony is absolutely better off somewhere else.  Including the moon.

“It is ironic, when you think about it. So often when Jackson is talking about Anthony he sounds as if he is talking about himself.  Starting with how stubborn he says Carmelo Anthony is.  You’ve got to admit. That’s a good one.

“But the one who ought to be somewhere else is Jackson himself.

“It is worth pointing out again that if anybody else in town had his record as an executive, they would already be on their way out of town.  His greatest success as an executive isn’t drafting Porzingis, after everybody in the league knew how hard he’d tried to peddle the fourth pick in that draft.  It is taking James Dolan’s money....

“Jackson’s record with the Knicks now stands at 80-166.  He says the fans see the Knicks getting better.  But why wouldn’t he think he can sell fans his particular brand of snake oil, as he looks around night after night and sees the Garden full of people who continue to support a team that has become of the two biggest losers in the sport (along with the Timberwolves) over the last 15 years?  Maybe these are the same people who still buy into the laughable notion that the Garden is still a ‘mecca’ of basketball.  Ask the question again, loudly, and even from the cheap seats, if you can still find any of those at the Garden:

“Mecca of what, exactly?”

As if all of the above wasn’t bad enough, Kristaps Porzingis blew off his exit meeting with Jackson and general manager Steve Mills on Thursday, we learned the next day.  It certainly doesn’t help when Jackson states that he doesn’t believe Porzingis is ready to be the team’s No. 1 option next season.

--Howard Megdal of CBSSports.com had this NBA Mock Draft:

1. Markelle Fultz, PG, Washington...Celtics
2. Josh Jackson, SF, Kansas...Suns
3. Lonzo Ball, PG, UCLA...Lakers
4. Jonathan Isaac, SF, Florida State...76ers... “Imagine, if you will, the Sixers with Ben Simmons, a 7-foot point guard [ed. he’s really 6’10”], Isaac, a 7-foot wing, and Joel Embiid, a 7-foot-plus center capable of scoring from everywhere.  50 wins isn’t crazy next season."
5. Jayson Tatum, SF, Duke...Magic
6. Dennis Smith Jr., PG, NC State...Timberwolves
7. De’Aaron Fox, PG, Kentucky...Knicks!  I would love this.

But this same draft has Wake Forest’s John Collins not being selected until No. 20 by the Hawks.  Until Phil W. told me, I had missed that Collins initially didn’t sign with an agent to keep his options open...a slight chance he’d opt to return for his junior season.  But then he got an agent, so he’s committed, and a lot of folks think he’s making a big mistake, because this draft is so loaded (including a plethora of international stars that will go in the first round).

I don’t know.  While it’s true he can’t play defense, he’s ready for the NBA on the offensive end.  Just as the Spurs got a steal in Kawhi Leonard with the 15th pick (Leonard was drafted by Indiana but then swapped to San Antonio), whoever gets Collins is going to get a guy who can contribute 15 a night right away...and then it is only upward from there.

MLB

--So there were my Mets, 7-3 after a 9-8  win in 16 down in Miami, Thursday, the first of four against the Marlins, but then New York proceeded to lose  3-2, 5-4  and 4-2 today to drop to 7-6 as the bullpen faltered and the feast or famine offense hit like it was suffering from dehydration.  Sucks.

I mean while I was having an Easter family dinner, beer and wine flowing (among some of us), closer Addison Reed gave up a two-run walk-off homer to rookie J.T. Riddle, his first career shot.

Saturday night, manager Terry Collins placed himself on the hot seat big time after taking starter Jacob deGrom out after seven dominating innings, deGrom having struck out 13 and the Mets with a 4-2 lead.

DeGrom, though, had thrown 97 pitches and after overworked Fernando Salas gave up his first runs of the year on back-to-back homers by Christian Yelich and Giancarlo Stanton, the Mets falling 5-4, Collins fought back against the press, arguing the organization made a commitment to protect Noah Syndergaard, deGrom and Matt Harvey, especially early in the season, because all three are coming off medical issues.

OK, we’ll buy that.  It’s just April.  But then Collins didn’t have a lefty ready to face Yelich after Salas, who clearly didn’t have his usual stuff, walked the hitter in front of him.

And that’s a memo....Bernie Goldberg is here.....

--Saturday, the surging New York Yankees won their sixth in a row to get to 7-4, beating the Cardinals at the Stadium, 3-2, St. Louis dropping to 3-8, its worst start in 20 years.

The surprising Minnesota Twins rode the pitching of Ervin Santana to a 6-0 win over the White Sox, Santana with a one-hitter to go to 3-0, 0.41 ERA...1 run in his first 22 innings.  [Minnesota then fell to 7-5, Sunday, as the ChiSox prevailed 3-1 to move to 6-5.]

--Friday, the Dodgers beat the Diamondbacks 7-1, Clayton Kershaw (2-1, 2.53) vs. Zack Greinke (1-1, 4.32).

--So with Saturday being Jackie Robinson Day across major league baseball, the 70th anniversary of Robinson breaking the color barrier, time once again to look at the state of the game and African-American participation in it.

Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports writes, the ceremonies Saturday “will only camouflage the harsh reality that there are fewer African Americans in baseball than at any other time in the last 60 years.

“African Americans comprise just 7.1% of players on this year’s opening-day rosters, the lowest percentage since 1958, according to a study by USA TODAY Sports.

“There are 62 African-American players among the 868 on active rosters and disabled lists.  Eleven teams have no more than one African American on their roster, and the San Diego Padres and Colorado Rockies have none.

“ ‘That’s unbelievable,’ says the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Dave Roberts, who with the Washington Nationals’ Dusty Baker are baseball’s only African-American managers.  ‘You ask yourself, ‘Why is this happening?’”

Oh, we’ve gone through all the reasons over the years that has led to a decline in the African-American population in MLB from 17.2% in 1994, but at least six of the top 30 prospects in this year’s draft are African American, according to ESPN and MLB.com.  Baseball America reports 5 of the top 12 high school prospects are also African American.

It’s not as if baseball hasn’t tried, spending millions of dollars on youth programs and urban initiatives.

But it also needs more stories like Andrew Toles, who two years ago was making $7.50 an hour working in the frozen foods section of a grocery store in Peachtree City, Ga., and is now the Dodgers’ starting left fielder.  He had been released by the Tampa Bay Rays organization in 2014, spent a year away from the game, and then made a meteoric rise from Class A to the Dodgers.  [He’s also the son of former NFL linebacker Alvin Toles.]  So Andrew is a guy to root for.

--On a totally different matter, ballpark food, the Seattle Mariners have added a new hit item...grasshoppers – specifically, an Oaxacan delicacy called chapulines: grasshoppers toasted in a chili-lime salt, which have been sold at a popular local eatery Poquitos.

As the Washington Post’s Matt Bonesteel writes: “The Mariners sold out of the grasshoppers during their first three home games of the season and, according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, had to make an emergency order just to get through the team’s weekend series with the Texas Rangers. The team also imposed a limit of 312 orders per game so that everyone gets a chance to savor their buggy goodness at $4 a pop (hop?)”

A spokesman for Safeco Field concessionaire Centerplate, said in a statement to the Post: “We are thrilled to see so many people stepping outside their comfort zone and trying them out.  They are pleasantly tasteful, and go great with a taco or margarita.”

The ballpark has sold more grasshoppers than the restaurant, Poquitos, sells in a year.

According to the Phoenix New Times, chapulines taste almost like salt and vinegar potato chips, but a bit wetter.

--Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred wishes the Cleveland Indians would do away with “Chief Wahoo” altogether, instead of the long transition away from it that has been occurring the past few years.

The thing is, Chief Wahoo remains very popular among Indians fans. While the “Block C” logo is being used as its “primary mark” on the team’s caps (I like this one), for example, Chief Wahoo is still in use and the team has continued to sell merchandise with that image.

There have been protesters outside Cleveland’s ballpark for some time now, but most fans arriving ignore them.  One man wearing an Indians jersey said on Cleveland.com, “They need a hobby, like stringing beads.”  Ouch.  Yup, Chief Wahoo will be tough to phase out entirely, I’m guessing.

Golf Balls

--Wes Bryan captured his first PGA Tour victory at the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, S.C.; the first South Carolina native to win it in 49 years.  Bryan beat Luke Donald by a stroke.

--Stephen Ames won his first Champions Tour event, a four-stroke victor over Bernhard Langer in Duluth, Georgia.

--Dustin Johnson announced he would return to the PGA Tour at the Wells Fargo Championships, May 4-7, with The Players Championship the following week.  Johnson said he had planned to take the three weeks off after the Masters anyway, before his back injury.

--The other week I wrote that it was official, I was tired of Tiger Woods...we all are now...all these fits and starts with the relaunch of his career has become very boring. 

So the other day John Strege of Golf World wrote of the success, or failure, of Tiger’s new book, The 1997 Masters: My Story:

“Has Tiger fatigue set in?

“His book might be instructive.  Celebrity autobiographies tend to be huge bestsellers and in the sports spectrum Tiger’s celebrity was of a magnitude that his endorsement income once ran to more than $100 million annually. Baker & Taylor, a prominent book distributor, reported that the first printing was to have been 100,000 copies, a notable number.

“Yet The 1997 Masters: My Story narrowly snuck onto the New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list, debuting at No. 15 in the April 9 edition of the Times’ Book Review.  And this Sunday, it will have vanished from the list altogether (though it is No. 5 on the Times’ Sports and Fitness monthly list for April, behind Tim Tebow’s Shaken, which debuted last October).

“Contrast that with Hank Haney’s book, The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods, which was published in 2012.  It debuted No. 1 on the Times’ print and e-book nonfiction bestseller list and No. 2 on its hardcover nonfiction list. Moreover, it remained on its lists for several weeks, and Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press reported in May 2012 that 228,000 copies were in print.”

From a PR standpoint, it would be best if Tiger just announced his retirement...no more tarnishing of his extraordinary record.

--The Spring Break Boys – Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Smylie Kaufman - were back at it in the Bahamas following the Masters.  All about social media and having fun and you can’t have a problem with it.

Except I do.  Don’t you think it’s time for Smylie Kaufman to pick up his golf game instead of just being known as part of this group? He’s made only three cuts in 11 starts during this 2016-17 wraparound season and is No. 209 on the FedEx points list.  At least the year before, when he won his lone tournament, he finished 43 in the standings.

Premier League

In action Saturday...Tottenham tried to keep the pressure on Chelsea with just six matches remaining in the season, the Spurs, playing as well as the franchise ever has, winning their seventh straight league game 4-0 over Bournemouth.  I mean they are just kicking ass and now Harry Kane is back in full form, scoring his 20th, thus becoming just the fourth player to score 20 Premier League goals in three consecutive seasons after Alan Shearer, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Thierry Henry.  Pretty remarkable...and he’s 23.  So the Spurs, temporarily, cut Chelsea’s lead to four points.

In other games yesterday, Crystal Palace and Leicester City tied 2-2, Everton beat Burnley 3-1, Watford kept Swansea in relegation land with a 1-0 win, and Manchester City whipped Southampton on the road, 3-0.

On to Sunday...Liverpool stayed in the key top four with a 1-0 win over West Brom.  That left Chelsea at Manchester United, and much to my surprise, Man U prevailed 2-0!  Manager Jose Mourinho shocked everyone by benching Ibrahimovic and put a much more youthful squad on the pitch and it was sheer brilliance, befuddling Chelsea.  So the plot thickens.... Tottenham is 4 points behind with six to play!  They are indeed still in the race.

Standings...games (of 38) and points....

1. Chelsea 32 – 75
2. Tottenham 32 – 71
3. Liverpool 33 – 66
4. Man City 32 – 64...Champions League line
5. Man U 31 – 60
6. Everton 33 – 57
7. Arsenal 30 – 54

17. Hull 33 – 30...relegation line
18. Swansea 33 – 28
19. Middlesbrough 31 – 24
20. Sunderland 32 – 21

Meanwhile, in Champions League play on Wednesday....

Atletico Madrid defeated Leicester City 1-0 at home, while Real Madrid had a big road win at Bayern Munich 2-1.  So now these four have a second leg, with Leicester actually in good shape, needing to win at home 2-0 or 3-1, for example, to advance to the semifinals on aggregate.

But in the rescheduled Borussia Dortmund-Monaco contest on Wednesday, it having been moved back a day by the terror attack on the Dortmund team bus, Monaco prevailed 3-2.

I have to admit, when I wrote the bus attack story last time, I had seen that Dortmund players wanted to get back out as soon as possible, but it turns out their coach, Thomas Tuchel, was furious after Wednesday’s action, saying they were never asked if they wanted to wait a few days, or a week.  Tuchel said at a news conference: “We were informed by a text message that the UEFA made a decision in Switzerland.  It felt lousy.  And that sticks with us,” he said.

“Minutes after the attacks, the only question was whether the game could go through or not. We were treated as if a beer can was thrown at the bus.  It gives you a feeling of impotence....

“We are outside of the bus, [injured player] Marc [Bartra] gets driven away in an ambulance, and we are informed about the decision. It does not feel good.”

Yes, the players said they wanted to get right back in it, but as Tuchel said, “We would have wanted to have more time to digest all of this....this was an attack on us as humans.”

NFL

--David M. Shribman / New York Times...on the passing of Dan Rooney:

“On a summer evening – any summer evening, even when the Pittsburgh breezes were kicking up a storm – he would walk a few blocks over to the park where he played as a kid, set himself down on a chair and talk about nothing in particular with Gus Kalaris.  He and Gus grew up there on the North Side, fate sending Dan Rooney to the ownership of the Steelers and Kalaris to the ice ball truck his father built 83 years ago.

“There they were, two men steeped in their family businesses, the man who ran one of the most storied NFL teams licking a lime ice ball and his friend shaving giant blocks of ice on the back of a trailer.  Gus would talk about the old days, and Dan, the signature figure of Pittsburgh, would affix his signature to folded-up popcorn boxes for the youngsters in perhaps the most racially integrated spot in town.  Later, when Dan would develop a posture reminiscent of a paper clip, he’d be driven over to Gus’s spot, down there beside the tennis courts, and sit in the back seat, propped up by pillows, telling lore and lies.  After a while, no one could tell the difference.

“It was perhaps the quintessential Pittsburgh scene, two men no longer tall – octogenarians with oval faces – sharing tall tales as dusk fell, one of them a millionaire sportsman who was decidedly not a sport.  Dan Rooney, who died on Thursday at 84, dressed as if he shopped at Goodwill, but his life was an expression of good will. Everybody, his barber and his blocking tackles, said so.  Ike Taylor, a onetime Steelers cornerback born poor on the west bank of the Mississippi, had Dan Rooney, born to Pittsburgh royalty on the north bank of the Allegheny, on speed  dial.  If only he could extend those big fingers to press that button now.

“Rooney himself left fingerprints all over the game, and all over American life. He pressed for the AFL-NFL merger that brought peace to pro football and the Super Bowl to iconic cultural status. He pushed football (and indeed all of pro sports) to hire black coaches through a measure that became known as the Rooney rule.  But when pro football owners became highfliers, he remained grounded.”

Perhaps one of the stories that best exemplifies Dan Rooney was when he was ambassador to Ireland, named to the position by Barack Obama, who Rooney endorsed early. As David Shribman writes:

“One spring, a delegation of grandees from the Pittsburgh-area Robert Morris University, which has a Rooney International Scholarship program, was invited to Deerfield Residence (in Dublin), the ambassador’s home in Phoenix Park.  The visitors put on crisp shirts and belted dresses.  Rooney came to the door in a Steelers jersey.  ‘We all felt silly,’ said Jay Carson, a university senior vice president.  ‘Hell, we all owned Steelers jerseys.’

“Then there was the time that some of the administrators at St. Vincent College*, 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh and for more than half a century host to the Steelers’ training camp, did some elementary math: Hundreds of cars with Steelers decals multiplied by, say, $3 for parking multiplied by 29 days might equal a decent sum for a tiny Roman Catholic college not exactly possessed of the endowment of Harvard.  A great idea, everybody agreed, but Rooney vetoed it.  These were people who couldn’t afford tickets to a Steelers game.  He wasn’t going to allow them to be charged to park to sit in the hot sun and watch fumble-recovery drills.

“Dan Rooney was an ordinary guy in a field where there were no ordinary guys on the field.  ‘He’d come in for a haircut and he wouldn’t talk about the Steelers,’ said Bryan Pusateri, his barber.  ‘He only wanted to talk about my daughters.’

“Years ago, a young businessman and his wife popped into St. Peter Parish on the North Side and saw Rooney in a Steelers jersey sitting in the pews.  When Mass ended, Rooney introduced himself.  ‘That was who he was,’ said Morgan O’Brien, today the head of Peoples Natural Gas.  ‘He felt he was in charge of welcoming you to the church.’

“That was who he was – and on eight Sundays a year, the cathedral he welcomed you to was Heinz Field.  Dan Rooney of the Steelers: an American original, and a lime ice ball man.”

*All of my relatives lived near here and I’d go up quite frequently (though don’t recall actually seeing the Steelers in camp).  It is a beautiful spot and is also where Arnold Palmer’s funeral was held.  Mr. Rooney’s parking gesture was appreciated.  My Uncle Bill used to regale my brother and me of his days at training camp in those far more innocent times.

Dan Rooney will be deeply missed.

--So as I’m typing this up Sunday morning, I just watched David McCullough on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and he talked about what Americans want in their leaders is “honesty” above all else.

Which leads me to Giants quarterback Eli Manning.  I like the guy.  He’s been living in my town of Summit, too, for a while, though I haven’t seen him.  Eli just comes off as a good ol’ boy who has been tough as nails when it comes to his play on the field and he’s a proven big-game performer.

But Eli Manning has now been proved to be a big-league liar in an ongoing sports memorabilia scandal. 

As the New York Post reported over the weekend:

“A smoking gun email from Manning proves he quarterbacked a conspiracy to defraud collectors by pawning off phony game-worn gear as the real deal, according to court documents obtained by The Post.

“The two-time Super Bowl MVP, who has a contract with memorabilia dealer Steiner Sports, instructed a team manager to get the bogus equipment so it could be sold off as authentic, the papers say.

“ ‘2 helmets that can pass as game used.  That is it.  Eli,’ Manning wrote to equipment manager Joe Skiba from a BlackBerry on April 27, 2010, according to the documents.

“Less than 20 minutes later, Manning wrote to his marketing agent, Alan Zucker, who requested the helmets, saying: ‘Should be able to get them for tomorrow.’

“The emails were filed Tuesday in New Jersey’s Bergen County Superior Court by three memorabilia collectors who are pressing a civil racketeering suit against the Giants, Manning, Skiba, Steiner and others, including team co-owner and CEO John Mara.

“Related court papers allege that the emails prove ‘Manning was looking to give non-game-used helmets to Steiner to satisfy – fraudulently – his contractual obligation’ with Steiner....

“Manning turned over the incriminating emails last week, court papers say.”

But the Giants failed to preserve any emails between Manning and Joe Skiba, who remains on the payroll, with the team paying his substantial legal bills, clearly in an attempt to protect Manning and the franchise’s vaunted integrity, which we’ve learned over the past few years on a slew of matters is a total crock.

At least Eli didn’t destroy his emails.

Separately, I will never understand why people pay for a lot of supposed game-worn stuff.  One of the plaintiffs, for example, shelled out $4,300 for a helmet purportedly worn by Manning during the team’s 2007 Super Bowl season – but which he realizes now is nothing more than a “$4,000 paperweight.”

Attorneys for the Giants say the email revelation “predates any litigation...and is taken out of context... Eli Manning is well known for his integrity and this is just the latest misguided attempt to defame his character.”

Eli’s brother has been known to lie, too, you know...back to that whole issue when Peyton was at the University of Tennessee.  You don’t even have to go to the questionable steroid situation.

--Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez was acquitted of two counts of first-degree murder Friday, after six days of jury deliberations.  Hernandez was also acquitted of having allegedly shot Alexander Bradley, the prosecution’s key witness. Hernandez cried and hugged his attorneys, while the families of his victims, Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, whom Hernandez had been accused of killing, hung their heads, according to Boston Globe reporter Travis Andersen.

Hernandez is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of Odin Lloyd in a separate case.  He received another four to five years in prison, however, as the jury that acquitted him of the two murders, still convicted him for unlawful possession of a gun.  I’m biting my tongue on this whole deal.  I feel for the Abreu and Furtado families.

--Can’t close on the above...back to Dan Rooney.

Consider the Steelers’ organization’s loyalty to coaches...just three since 1969 – Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin.  Remarkable.

Stuff

--Oh brother.  Friday night, after my New York Rangers had taken Game One in Montreal on Wednesday, 2-0, behind the brilliant netminding of Henrik Lundqvist, New York was up 3-2, final minutes in Game Two, yours truly feverishly writing that other column I do on Fridays and switching to the action with five minutes to go.

The freakin’ Rangers gave up the tying goal with 17.3 seconds remaining in regulation (not Henrik’s fault) and then lost in OT, 4-3.  As Charlie Brown would have said, “Drat!”

Of course I knew they’d lose tonight back at the Garden...and they did, 3-1.  Series 2-1 Les Canadiens.  Sacre bleu!

--One of the Kentucky Derby favorites, Classic Empire, had to run in the Arkansas Derby on Saturday to qualify, needing a top four to secure a spot for May 6 at Churchill Downs.

But as the Wall Street Journal’s Jim Chairusmi wrote beforehand, there was some doubt whether the horse would even make it to Saturday.  The reason: “In recent weeks, trainer Mark Casse has called off two of Classic Empire’s scheduled workouts after the colt balked at practicing.”

Yes, it seems like Classic Empire really isn’t interested in being a race horse.

Look, I can’t talk to the lad....you do.

You may recall (as I wrote in this space Nov. 7) that Classic Empire won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, the flagship race for Derby hopefuls the following spring.

Well, the horse was indeed entered Saturday, and went off at 9-5...and the result?

Classic Empire won in a very exciting, multi-horse stretch run so on to the Derby he goes, though with only three weeks to rest up after seemingly expending a ton of energy on Saturday.

--No NASCAR race this weekend, the season resuming next weekend at Bristol, the beginning of an 18-week stretch of uninterrupted racing.

But there was a cool article the other day in the Washington Post on how three-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton really wants to enter a NASCAR race “one day...like the Daytona 500 maybe.”

That would be way cool....like the old days when Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt crossed over and won the thing.

--There have been a slew of stories this week on the wonderful tale of Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew, the recipient of a new heart recently, and the donor, former NFL player Konrad Reuland.

Reuland, a tight end, suffered an aneurysm that ruptured behind his left eye on Nov. 30, and he was declared brain-dead on Dec. 12.

Hours before the pronouncement by doctors, Konrad’s mother, Mary, “leaned over the hospital bed and nestled her head on the chest of Konrad....

“ ‘Something in me, I don’t know why, but maybe it’s a mother’s instinct...I just laid my right ear on his chest and listened to his heart beating all day, from morning until we had to leave,’ Mary said.  ‘I memorized it.  And I said, ‘I hope I get to hear this again one day.’’”

As Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times writes:

“Less than three months later, Mary stood arm-in-arm with her husband, Ralf, and youngest son, 24-year-old Austin, in the backyard of their San Juan Capistrano home, eagerly awaiting the first meeting with the man who received Konrad’s heart and a kidney in a 13-hour operation on Dec. 16

“From a walkway on the side of the house on that sunny Thursday afternoon emerged Rod Carew, the 71-year-old Hall of Fame baseball player, holding the hand of his wife, Rhonda, as he ambled toward the Reulands....

“Carew, who survived a massive heart attack in 2015, hugged the Reulands.  After some small talk, they moved inside, where Rod, sitting on the family room sectional, handed Mary a stethoscope belonging to Ralf Reuland, a doctor.

“Mary placed the device on Carew’s chest and listened for about 15 seconds.  Her eyes reddened as her head sank into Carew’s shoulder.

“ ‘It was comforting in a way to hear that again, knowing that part of Konrad is still here,’ Mary said.  ‘I didn’t know until this happened that every heartbeat, like a fingerprint, is unique.  It was definitely Konrad’s heart in there.’”

One of the ironies in this multi-layered story is that as a middle-school student at St. John’s Episcopal School in Rancho Santa Margarita, teenage Konrad met Rod Carew at a middle-school basketball game.  Konrad came home all excited. He wanted to be a professional athlete, he told his mother.

Aside from the obvious, Carew is lucky to be alive going back to the day in 2015 when he hit his tee shot on the first hole at Corona’s Cresta Verde Golf Course down the middle of the fairway, and suddenly his chest began to burn and his hands grew clammy.  He drove the cart to the clubhouse, crumpled to the floor and asked a woman to call paramedics.

Carew remembers waking up, facing them, and they were saying, “Let’s go, damn it, we’re losing him!”  “Then I was gone,” he told DiGiovanna.

Carew’s heart stopped beating twice.  When he awoke in the hospital he was told he had suffered a heart attack known as “the widow maker.”  If he had been further out on the course, he would have died right there.

It was then a 160-day struggle in eight hospitals and two major surgeries, over 15 months, before the transplant.

--The world’s most famous giraffe finally gave birth on Saturday.  April the Giraffe’s prolonged pregnancy was watched by millions online and she delivered her fourth calf.  Jordan Patch, owner of the Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, New York, said “Everything went absolutely perfect. This is great!”  Ka-ching...ka-ching....mused the editor on future ticket sales for Mr. Patch, but that’s OK.

Eventually, though, the young giraffe will be moved to another facility for a breeding program.

‘Giraffe’ recently cracked the All-Species List’s Top Ten.

--Emma Morano, at 117 believed to be the world’s oldest person and the last surviving child of the 19th century, died on Saturday in the town of Verania in northern Italy.  She swore to the end that her diet of two raw eggs a day was key.

Morano was born on Nov. 29, 1899.  Her life spanned three centuries, two World Wars and more than 90 Italian governments.

--Back to the All-Species List, there is a reason why ‘Man’ was recently demoted to 361, and it has nothing to do with Syria.  Just incredibly bad behavior, including word out of Madison County, Iowa, Sunday, that one of the famed covered bridges there, the Cedar Bridge, was destroyed by fire...arson...as reported by the Des Moines Register.

Built in 1883, the Cedar Bridge was burnt down once before in 2002 and rebuilt in 2004 at a cost of $1 million.

Just the other day, on the passing of “The Bridges of Madison County” author Robert James Waller, I lamented that in my trips to Madison County over the years (this is where John Wayne was born), I didn’t take the time for a side trip to the covered bridges.

Since it’s Easter, though, I’ll hold ‘Man’ at 361, even though we had another horrific tragedy in Syria on Saturday.

Top 3 songs for the week 4/14/73: #1 “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia” (Vicki Lawrence)  #2 “Neither One Of Us” (Gladys Knight & The Pips)  #3 “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree” (Dawn featuring Tony Orlando...would be #1 a week later and hold that position for four weeks...)...and...#4 “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got)” (Four Tops)   #5 “Sing” (Carpenters)  #6 “The Cisco Kid” (War)  #7 “Danny’s Song” (Anne Murray)  #8 “Break Up To Make Up” (The Stylistics)  #9 “Killing Me Softly With His Song” (Roberta Flack)  #10 “Call Me” (Al Green)

Baseball Quiz Answer: Five announcers in the Hall of Fame, recipients of the Ford C. Frick Award, who also played in the major leagues...Joe Garagiola, Tony Kubek, Tim McCarver, Bob Uecker and Jerry Coleman.

I thought this one up after looking at a recent George Will quiz that was about Coleman specifically, Mr. Will asking which broadcaster once said the following:

“Ozzie Smith just made another play that I’ve never seen anyone else make before, and I’ve seen him make it more than anyone else ever had”?

Coleman also once famously said: “There’s a fly ball to deep center field.  Winfield is going back, back.  He hits his head against the wall.  It’s rolling toward second base.”

Coleman, who finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting in 1949 (to Roy Sievers) as a second baseman for the Yankees, played from 1949-57 with New York, delaying the start of his career to serve in World War II and then taking time off to serve in Korea.  He was a fighter pilot, flying 120 combat missions between these two conflicts.  He later broadcast games for the Padres from 1972 until his death in 2014, save for 1980, when he managed the team, going 73-89.

Quite a life.

Next Bar Chat, Thursday.

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