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Bar Chat

07/10/2014

Brazil Is Humiliated

[Posted 9:30 AM, Wednesday...prior to LeBron’s reported meeting with Pat Riley]

Baseball Quiz: Who was the first African-American to win an American League batting title? Answer below.

LeBron and Melo

Would you two guys hurry up and decide so the rest of us, including the players and owners in the NBA, can move on?

NBA insider Stephen A. Smith reported there could be a domino effect if Chris Bosh decided to sign with Houston, Bosh being from Texas and the Rockets prepared to offer the max.  

But while some say this could lead to LeBron spurning the Heat as well and returning home to Cleveland, Smith believes it could allow the Heat to pivot to Carmelo Anthony, which would no doubt please LeBron and keep him in Miami.

Cleveland, though, according to others, remains the frontrunner for LeBron. After just signing All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving to a long-term deal, and with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft in Andrew Wiggins, plus three first-round picks next year, LeBron would be heading up a squad on the rise.

Back to the Heat, because in doing this story you just go back and forth a lot, Miami team president Pat Riley did a great job in prying free agent forward Josh McRoberts away from Charlotte, while adding former All-Star small forward Danny Granger. Granted, knee issues have slowed Granger down considerably the past few years but he could still be a contributor, while the multi-dimensional McRoberts was a highly sought-after commodity.

[Charlotte turned around and gave a four-year offer to Utah Jazz restricted free agent Gordon Hayward, $63 million. But the Jazz have said they would match it.]

And...back to the Knicks, as the New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro points out, what would it say about Phil Jackson if Melo says no...after Steve Nash had said no, earlier. After the Knicks gave Jackson $60 million for his ability to recruit.

“What does this say, if Jackson is unable to RETAIN, let alone recruit? And what is the message to whatever foundation player Jackson turns his attention to next, that he wasn’t able to keep his own star in place, even with all that extra cash to spend?”

Back to Chris Bosh...it does seem like he’d be a very good fit at Houston, alongside Dwight Howard and James Harden. Plus the Rockets are offering him four years, $80 to $90 million vs. the $42.6 million he has left on his Miami contract, which would be extended to five years if he stayed with the Heat, though at less money than he’d make in Houston.

And back to LeBron...Chris Sheridan of SheridanHoops.com reported:

“James traveled Monday to Las Vegas, and a source who has been briefed on James’ free agency maneuverings told SheridanHoops that James’ inner circle, from his wife, Savannah, to his agent, Rich Paul, to his best friends, Maverick Carter and Randy Mims, are unanimous in their belief that James’ best move is a return to the team he played for from 2003-2010.”

--Separately, the Brooklyn Nets made a solid choice in Lionel Hollins to replace Jason Kidd, with Hollins being introduced to the media on Monday.

Hollins got a raw deal in Memphis because he refused to get caught up in metrics, analytics (see below bit by Norman Chad).

Germany 7 Brazil 1

Good lord...I was watching in total disbelief along with many of you. And for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, seeking reelection, this is a huge defeat on multiple levels.

“Brazilians have cried, cursed their president and covered their faces in shame after their beloved football team’s humiliating 7-1 thrashing by Germany in the World Cup semifinals.

“After the fifth goal, well before half-time, hundreds of people left their expensive seats at the stadium in the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte.

“A section of the crowd chanted sexually expletive obscenities against the players and President Dilma Rousseff, who during the cup had mostly enjoyed a reprieve from protests over the record $11 billion spent to host the tournament.

“The tears began well before the final whistle, with the third German goal in the first half causing children and adults to start bawling in the stadium and in public screenings across the nation.”

Said a 24-year-old biology student, “The only good thing is I think it will affect President Dilma in the election. But all our politicians are even worse than the team.”

Rousseff said: “Like every Brazilian, I am very, very sad about this defeat. I am immensely sorry for all of us. Fans and our players.”

Brazil was playing without star Neymar and captain Thiago Silva, but obviously their presence wouldn’t have made a difference, except perhaps it would have been 6-2 instead.

“And it wasn’t as if Germany had to be particularly brilliant. They were good, of that make no mistake. But when a team wins this easily it’s hard to know just how good. It wasn’t as if they were scything Brazil apart with sumptuous flowing football or the kind that will leave the rest of the world looking on, breathless.

“But its relentlessness as it powered on and on to get to the final tally of seven had a terrible beauty about it, the total subjugation of an opponent who, before this match, seemed to think it had a divine right to be in the final.

“In fact the score line and the poverty of the Brazilian performance distorted even the fact that this was a game in which a record for the ages was set: Miroslav Klose’s goal, Germany’s second, was his 16th in World Cups, making the 36-year-old veteran of four tournaments the record goal scorer in the history of the competition.

“He and his teammates were aided and abetted by some of the worst defending ever seen in a game at this level. So simple was it for Die Nationalmannschaft that to compare it even to stealing sweets from a child’s pram is understating the ease with which Brazil was ripped asunder time and again....

“This was the tournament that, in popular myth, was going to be the World Cup where the Selecao erased the nightmare of 1950, when they were defeated at home in the final by Uruguay.

“Instead they have an even bigger nightmare to deal with now. Brazil is a nation in meltdown, on the field and in the stands.”

Ball Bits

--I didn’t mention it the last time, but the Yankees, grasping for a starter in light of their failure to get the Cubs’ Jeff Samardzija, who went to Oakland with teammate Jason Hammel, picked up Brandon McCarthy from Arizona, after the 6-foot-7 right-hander had gone 3-10, 5.01 ERA with the Diamondbacks. But he did have some solid seasons for the A’s earlier and the Yanks, who gave up Vidal Nuno (no relation to Vidal Sassoon, though Nuno occasionally pitched like the late hair products king), are hoping he regains his old form.

The Yankees also designated for assignment veteran Alfonso Soriano.

--Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz was irate with an MLB Network report that said Ortiz might have gotten a “free pass” in MLB’s Biogenesis investigation because he had been on a list of players who apparently tested positive in 2003 MLB survey testing.

This came about during a discussion on Orioles outfielder Nelson Cruz, who received a 50-game suspension last year for his involvement in Biogenesis, and then proceeded to make this year’s All-Star team.

Ortiz maintains he was not on the 2003 list and thus there was no “free pass.”

“That free pass B.S. that they want to talk about over there, they can shove it up their [rhymes with ‘pass’].

Ortiz teammate John Lackey then said he wanted to say things about Cruz, “but I’m not going to. You guys forget pretty conveniently about stuff.”

To which Orioles manager Buck Showalter observed that “everybody needs to make sure that their own backyard is clean.”

Ortiz added: “There’s a reason why I’ve been tested like 40 times since they approved the policy, the drug policy. Is that a free pass?”

--The Mets won the 4,000th game in franchise history on Tuesday, 8-3 over the Braves!!! Wow!

--I agree with the gist of the following...from the Washington Post’s Norman Chad.

“Albert Einstein once said, ‘I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction – the world will have a generation of idiots.’

“Similarly, I fear the day that statistics will swallow up our sports experience – the world will have a generation of soulless, suck-the-joy-out-of-life human widgets.

“Sabermetricians of all intellectual sizes, come on down!!!

“In the 1968 film ‘The Graduate,’ during Benjamin’s college-graduation party, a family friend pulls him aside and tells him, ‘I just want to say one word to you. Just one word: plastics.’

“If ‘The Graduate’ were made in 2014, that man would tell Benjamin, ‘I just want to say one word to you: analytics.’

“Every day that I surf the Web or open up a newspaper – I’m the only person left on my block still opening up a newspaper... I am wide-eyed at the statistical flotsam and jetsam through the ever-congested stratosphere.

“I remember clicking on a Dodgers-Red Sox box score last September on espn.com, where, under the heading of ‘Research Notes,’ I read the following:

“ ‘Hanley Ramirez’s 431-foot home run in the 1st inning cracked off the bat at 114.6 miles per hour, boosting his average speed on home runs up to 107.5 miles per hour, 2nd-fastest in the league (min. 10 HR). It also got into the 2nd deck at Great American Ballpark in 7.75 seconds.’

“I guess it’s possible you could use that information to land a job at Goldman Sachs or impress a first date between the appetizer and entrée at T.G.I. Fridays, but from where I’m slouching, THERE IS NO PRACTICAL APPLICATION during this or any subsequent lifetime to a single number cited in that research note.”

--I was watching the Yankees-Red Sox game back in April when the camera shined a spotlight on a sleeping Yankees fan, who turned out to be Andrew Rector. I remember thinking as ESPN’s John Kruk and Dan Shulman made fun of the sleeping [rhymes with plug] that they were going too far in making fun of the guy, and now Mr. Rector is seeking $10 million in damages against ESPN and Major League Baseball in a defamation suit filed in New York.

“In the course of watching the game, plaintiff napped and this opened an unending verbal cascade against the napping plaintiff,” the complaint says.

Shulman and Kruk used words such as “‘stupor, fatty, unintelligent and stupid’ knowing and intending the same to be heard and listened to by millions of people all over the world, including people who know the plaintiff or interacted with the plaintiff in person,” according to the complaint.

In hindsight, yes, some of the comments were perhaps uncalled for, but thanks to his attorney, Andrew Rector just drew all kinds of unwanted attention to himself all over again. This should be thrown out of court.

--Note to Mets management. Do not go out and make a trade with the Cubs for one of their shortstops and give up a starting pitcher or two in return. We’re fine at short with Tejada and what we have in the minors, and we don’t have as much pitching depth as the fans are led to believe. That said, trade Bartolo Colon, seeing as he obviously doesn’t figure in future plans.

--July 9, 1969...45 years ago...yes, your editor has written of this day countless times before, the night Chicago Cubs rookie Jimmy Qualls broke up Tom Seaver’s perfect game with one out in the top of the ninth at Shea Stadium before 50,709 fans. But for new readers:

Your editor, a mere tyke of 11 years old, was eating from his slush mug (Hawaiian Punch), afraid to let his father know that Seaver had an El Perfecto going until I realized my dad, a big baseball fan, would want to see it, so I called him upstairs to watch at the top of the ninth.

I would write Seaver the next day that my father had jinxed him. I got a letter back from Tom Terrific, telling me not to blame Dad, though I of course don’t know if it was some clubhouse  boy signing for Seaver and I have no idea where the letter is these days.

Anyway, that night was the first of five one-hitters Seaver would throw for the Mets, though he finally fired a no-no on June 16, 1978, for the Reds.

At least back in ’69, the Mets went on to win the World Series and Seaver won 25 and his first Cy Young Award.

--As noted in ESPN The Magazine, potential upset alert...Ohio State vs. Navy in Baltimore, Aug. 30. [I’m getting pumped for college football.]

--So you know that Garth Brooks series of concerts in Dublin I wrote of the other day, and how the city council wanted to limit Brooks to three instead of five consecutive nights over concerns in the surrounding neighborhood, and how Brooks said ‘all or none’?

It’s over. No concerts and a huge disaster for Ireland and its image. Really.

400,000 tickets had been sold. 70,000 had scheduled trips from outside the country. 

“The country’s cash-strapped businesses branded it a costly ‘fiasco,’ while Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny said the loss of an estimated 50 million euro was a ‘shock’ for the economy. And the debacle was branded an ‘embarrassment’ for the country by Arts Minister Jimmy Deenihan.”

Kenny said Tuesday night: “It is a shock to the system in terms of the economy of this city and the reputation of our country.”

The country’s top mediator, Kieran Mulvey, said, “It will be used against us by competing tourist and concert authorities in the future. It will be spun against us. We’ve an infinite capacity to score own goals.”

Devastated promoter Peter Aiken claimed that he had been “shafted” by Dublin City Council chief executive Owen Keegan. Hotel bosses called it a “severe blow.”

Ticketmaster described the scale of the operation for refunding 400,000 tickets as “unprecedented.”

This was to be the start of Brooks’ comeback tour. As I noted the other day, a cargo ship carrying 18 trucks with customized equipment and staging – that Brooks helped select through snapping photographs of precisely where he wanted the stage to be set in Croke Park – left the U.S. for Ireland on July 1. It was to be turned into a documentary film, with U.S. network participation.

Brooks personally told Ireland’s popular morning television show, “It’s game over.”

So, again, the promoter thought he had a license for all five shows from the City Council. It was assumed to be a rubber stamp. The tickets were scarfed up in January and February. 70,000 from abroad made travel plans. Brooks was all in.

Then, out of nowhere, a local group said the quality of life in their neighborhood would suffer if there were concerts five consecutive nights and said it would accept only three. The Dublin City Council acquiesced, stupidly.

Brooks didn’t want to agree to do just three because he was concerned for those who would be screwed from the cancellation of the other two shows, even though he himself is losing $millions by nixing the whole deal.

Ireland will never, ever get another opportunity to host an event like this. I’ll be there myself in about six weeks. It will be interesting to see what the locals have to say.

Top 3 songs for the week 7/9/83: #1 “Every Breath You Take” (The Police...one of their worst...) #2 “Electric Avenue” (Eddy Grant...just godawful...) #3 “Flashdance...What A Feeling” (Irene Cara...whatever...) ...and...#4 “Never Gonna Let You Go” (Sergio Mendes.... gets a pass for Brazil 66 work...) # 5 “Too Shy” (Kajagoogoo....passable...) #6 “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” (Michael Jackson....far from his best...) #7 “Time (Clock Of The Heart)” (Culture Club...anything by these guys makes me want to go to Syria...) #8 “Come Dancing” (The Kinks...OK, it just so happened when this song was big, and of course I always liked the Kinks, I went to Bermuda by myself for a week of golf, staying at the Pompano Beach Club, which is literally next door to a super course, Port Royal...I was adopted by two guys from Kentucky who had an annual week away from their wives and I wish I had stayed in touch with them (beyond the first year or so after)....So whenever I hear this song I think of that great week...) #9 “Don’t Let It End” (Styx...no, please do...) #10 “Our House” (Madness...ughh...)

Baseball Quiz Answer: Frank Robinson was the first African-American to win an A.L. batting title, 1966, his Triple Crown season for the Orioles...49-122, .316. Jackie Robinson was the first in the N.L., 1949, at .342. It was also his best season, only his third in the majors, when he hit 16 home runs, drove in 124, collected 203 hits, stole a league-leading 37, and was MVP. Plus he fanned only 27 times in 593 ABs.

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