By Bob Markus
Time out! This will be my last posting for awhile. Like the swallows that return to Capistrano, we (my wife Leslie and I) are making our annual return home, leaving our computer behind to do whatever computers do when nobody's looking. We plan to be back in time for me to resume my weekly ruminations Aug. 26.
Having spent the majority of my first 65 years in the Chicago area, I'm looking forward to seeing old friends like Roy Damer, Cooper Rollow, and Neil Milbert, former colleagues at the Chicago Tribune, not to mention our old neighbors from Winnetka. But that's not the only reason we're going home.
Every year, on the Monday before the All-Star baseball game, an organization called Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities, holds a celebrity golf tournament, with the proceeds--all of them--going to fund cancer research, with a heavy emphasis on the young victims at Children's Memorial Hospital. Everyone involved is a volunteer. Although I donate modest amounts to a number of charities, this is the one with which my heart lies.
I've been a member of the CBCC board since 1982 and I believe I've missed the tournament only once since then. The CBCC was started by Marv Samuel, a former minor league pitcher, and dedicated to the memories of Nellie Fox and Sherm Lollar, two former White Sox stars, who succumbed to the dread disease. Samuel recruited a cadre of retired athletes with ties to Chicago and CBCC was in business. The day before the All-Star game was chosen on the theory that Cubs and White Sox players would be available to participate as celebrity guests during their three-day break.
For awhile it worked that way and it was not unusual for a dozen or so active players to show up for the daylong outing. In recent years that has changed. Fewer players are willing to give up even a day of their family time during the season. Still, every year there are a few active players who show up. Todd Hundley was one of them during the brief, painful period he spent with the Cubs. He brought his dad, Randy, with him, and I got to play with the former Cubs catcher that day.
For the most part, however, the celebrity players are icons of the past from all sports. Billy Pierce, the stylish left hander for the Go Go White Sox of the '50s, has been president of the organization since Samuel's untimely death and that is not an honorary position. Billy works tirelessly all year long for this one day in the sun. Gene Hiser, who played the outfield for both Chicago teams, arranges the foursomes and assigns celebrity golfers to each group, also almost a fulltime commitment. Bob Miller, former Mets' reliever, spends many hours arranging travel packages for auction.
Other old time players who can be counted on to play almost every year include Andy Pafko, Bill Skowron, Al Weis, Paul Popovich, Steve Trout, Carlton Fisk, Ron Kittle and Jim Rivera. I've played with Skowron and Rich Nye, a former Cubs' starting pitcher who is now a veterinarian. I can tell you that on a golf course, Nye is the better slugger of the two.
From basketball, there are Bob Love, Johnny Kerr, and Norm Van Lier, all ex-Bulls (in Kerr's case only as coach) and Dick Schramm, former coach of the New Jersey Nets. Dick travels to Chicago from his home in Boca Raton, Fl. every year just to emcee the live auction. Several former Bears, including Ronnie Bull, Mike Pyle, and George Blanda are yearly participants and, since he moved to the Chicago area a few years ago, Hall-of-Famer Ted Hendricks has played every year.
I've had a nodding acquaintance with Hendricks ever since his rookie year with the Baltimore Colts. In those days I used to cover the first two weeks of the NFL champions' training camp as they prepared to play the College All-Stars in the annual preseason opener that was sponsored by The Tribune. Also at that training camp in Westminster, Md., was author George Plimpton, who was attempting to reprise his Paper Lion success. Unfortunately for Plimpton he was running the infamous Oklahoma drill on the first day of practice when he was nearly dismembered by a ferocious linebacker who apparently wasn't in on the joke.
Before breaking camp each year the Colts, like most teams, had a "rookie show," where the rookies were called on to embarrass themselves in various ways, usually by singing their school fight song. But with Plimpton on board, this rookie show was a bit different, as I was to discover. At some point during the show I was startled to hear my name called out, as being a rookie writer, at least as far as the Colts were concerned. I was summoned to the stage and instructed to lie down. I had no idea what was going to happen, but did as I was told. Presently I saw, shambling toward me, two men disguised as a horse. As this strange creature passed over me, Hendricks, who was the hind end of the horse, unscrewed the cap of a long tape carton, sending a stream of water all over me. The symbolism was unmistakeable. The Colts were using the rookie writer as a urinal. I managed to laugh and take it with apparent good grace, despite my inner embarrassment.
I had interviewed Hendricks a few times during the intervening years and the first time he played in the CBCC tournament we met at the bar after finishing our rounds and had a long conversation. So long that, when everyone else went into the dining room to eat, we stayed at the bar. It was then that Hendricks astounded me by asking me for MY autograph! I have signed a few--very few--autographs from fans over the years, but this was the first and only time an athlete ever requested one. I signed on a bar napkin and heaven knows what Ted did with it.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
By Bob Markus
For most of my adult life I have considered myself a political conservative, a little to the left of Rush Limbaugh, but considerably to the right of Oprah Winfrey. I was already leaning in that direction when I met Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater at a Christmas party long before most of America knew of him. I was in the army at the time, a lowly PFC serving as the public information specialist at Yuma Test Station, a facility that tested military ordnance under desert conditions. The only reason I was at the party, in the officers' club, was that I was dating the daughter of the base dentist, a major, who was coerced into inviting me.
I was introduced to the Senator, spent quite a bit of time in a group conversation, and came away enormously impressed. Impressed enough that I read his book, "The Conscience of a Conservative," wrote in his name in the 1960 Presidential election, and offered to work for him in 1964. But that was then and this now and if you asked me today about my political leanings I couldn't give you a one-word answer. Conservative? No. Liberal? No. Libertarian? Maybe.
One thing I am certain of, however, is that I am a Luddite. Don't know what a Luddite is? In the immortal words of the Smothers Brothers, "Look it up in your Funk & Wagnall's." The term originally referred to a group of workers in England in the early 19th century, who went around destroying farm machinery, reasoning that the new-fangled implements were the root cause of unemployment. It since has come to mean anyone who resists modern advances in technology.
That certainly describes me. We owned a microwave oven for 10 years before my son finally explained to me how to use it to warm up leftovers. By the time I learned how to use a video tape machine, they were already being replaced by DVDs. It was only a few Christmases ago that my daughter and son-in-law gave me a compact disc player and taught me how to use it.
Which brings us to the subject of computers and closer to the real subject of today's essay. My introduction to computers came in the fall of 1977 when the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune told me that we were going to start writing and transmitting our stories via computer and that if I didn't learn how to use one by the end of the year I was not going to the Super bowl. I was issued a stone age computer called a Teleram, an evil monstrosity that was so heavy it required two Romanian weight lifters to transport it.
It barely fit under an airplane seat and certainly left no room for any other carry-on luggage. It featured a screen so tiny you could barely get 200 words on it and here's the best part--when you filled the screen you had to send it to the office computer before continuing. This required dialing the proper number, listening for the tone, then inserting the telephone into two rubber couplers, making sure of a snug fit. Then you pressed a button and away went your copy. Sometimes it even went to the office. More frequently it went to Afghanistan or Marrakesh. Any nearby noise would send the machine into a hissy fit. It could be the guy next to you pounding on the table and cursing because his own computer had just gone wacko. If you were covering a basketball game at Purdue, where the press row was right in the middle of the maniacal fans, you had no shot. Eventually, after four or five failures, you might manage to get through to the home computer. Then you had to call up a new screen and try to remember how you had ended the previous screen so you could resume writing the story without its looking as if it had been written by a committee of idiots.
Over the years, the computers became more sophisticated and easier to use, but when I retired, almost 20 years later, I still couldn't do anything other than write and transmit a story via computer. When I retired and moved to Florida I finally got a home computer, but I still couldn't use if for anything other than writing a Christmas letter or an indignant letter to a usurious credit card firm. Finally, after much coaxing and cajoling from my now grownup children, I learned how to send and receive e-mail, and at long last to actually get on the internet.
That's where I discovered the subject ot today's text. Exactly a year ago today, Mike Freeman, national columnist for CBS SportsLine, posted a story titled, "Presenting the Top 50 Sports Jerks of All Time." It must have been well received because, as of yesterday, it was still there on the sports home page. In the interest of brevity and avoiding a possible plagiarism suit I won't reveal too much of it except to say that the top two jerks are murderers, one convicted, one not; that Dale Earnhardt is on it and A.J. Foyt isn't; and that Dave Kingman is way too far down the list at No. 48.
But where in the name of Leo Durocher is Alex Johnson? In 36 years of covering sports for The Tribune I ran into several athletes who refused to talk to me. That never bothered me, as long as they didn't talk to other writers, either. A silent Steve Carlton never bothered me. He didn't talk to writers, so what? His privilege. What did bother me was when an athlete would refuse to talk to me in the post game locker room and then whisper something into the ear of a competing writer. Tony Esposito did that to me after a tough loss in the Stanley Cup finals and that infuriated me.
It wasn't until years later, when I found myself sitting next to him on an airplane, that I found out he's really a pretty good guy. Veteran pitcher Ron Reed went straight to the top of my personal jerk list one night when I wasn't even talking to him. I was covering a White Sox game and, after a tough loss, I went to the locker room to talk to Carlton Fisk. Fisk was riding an exercise bike and I interrupted to ask him if he could talk. Reed, sitting in front of his locker a few feet away told me, "Don't bother him; he's busy." I informed Reed that Fisk was an adult and could speak for himself. Fisk did get off the bike and answered a few questions in his usual articulate manner.
But of all the athletes I ever tried to interview Alex Johnson was the only one who threatened me with bodily harm. Johnson, who had won the American League batting title the previous year, had so alienated his California Angels teammates with his blatant lack of hustle that, by midseason of 1971, they ostracised him and his manager refused to play him. I wrote a column saying that Johnson had great talent, was doing what he loved to do, but was throwing it all away. He had, I said "a private devil inside him" which was depriving him of enjoying the fruits of his talent. All in all I thought it was a sympathetic column. Up until then I had rather liked him. He had a reputtion for not talking to writers but I had interviewed him once when he was with Cincinnati and he was cordial enough.
I wasn't sure which Alex Johnson I'd be dealing with when, in spring training with the Cleveland Indians the next year, I approached him and introduced myself again as a writer for the Chicago Tribune. "Chicago Tribune," he repeated. "There was a writer for the Chicago Tribune last year who wrote an article I didn't like. He called me a devil." I confessed that I was the writer, but couldn't recall calling him a devil. I offered to look up the offending article and bring it to him the next time we met. "You do that," he said.
Before the Indians' first visit to Chicago that year I looked up the column and, although I hadn't exactly called him a devil, I wasn't going to argue the point. I admit I was extremely nervous when I went, column in hand, to Comiskey Park the next night. As I crossed the diamond to enter the visitor's dugout and locker room down the first base line I kept thinking of the old Indian in the movie "Little Big Man," who kept saying 'It is a good day to die."
The hell it was. When I reached the locker room, I was told that Johnson had arrived in a good humor. "He was smiling," I was informed. He was sitting facing his locker and reading a book, still smiling--until he saw me. I said, "I'm . . ." and that's as far as I got before he leaped off his chair and screamed, "I know who you are you blankety blank,blank,blanker." He then suggested that I get out of his face before he inflicted severe damage on mine. I agreed this was probably the best course of action and that was my last conversation with Alex Johnson. Does all this make Alex Johnson a jerk? I'm not certain. After all, one man's jerk is another man's idol.
For most of my adult life I have considered myself a political conservative, a little to the left of Rush Limbaugh, but considerably to the right of Oprah Winfrey. I was already leaning in that direction when I met Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater at a Christmas party long before most of America knew of him. I was in the army at the time, a lowly PFC serving as the public information specialist at Yuma Test Station, a facility that tested military ordnance under desert conditions. The only reason I was at the party, in the officers' club, was that I was dating the daughter of the base dentist, a major, who was coerced into inviting me.
I was introduced to the Senator, spent quite a bit of time in a group conversation, and came away enormously impressed. Impressed enough that I read his book, "The Conscience of a Conservative," wrote in his name in the 1960 Presidential election, and offered to work for him in 1964. But that was then and this now and if you asked me today about my political leanings I couldn't give you a one-word answer. Conservative? No. Liberal? No. Libertarian? Maybe.
One thing I am certain of, however, is that I am a Luddite. Don't know what a Luddite is? In the immortal words of the Smothers Brothers, "Look it up in your Funk & Wagnall's." The term originally referred to a group of workers in England in the early 19th century, who went around destroying farm machinery, reasoning that the new-fangled implements were the root cause of unemployment. It since has come to mean anyone who resists modern advances in technology.
That certainly describes me. We owned a microwave oven for 10 years before my son finally explained to me how to use it to warm up leftovers. By the time I learned how to use a video tape machine, they were already being replaced by DVDs. It was only a few Christmases ago that my daughter and son-in-law gave me a compact disc player and taught me how to use it.
Which brings us to the subject of computers and closer to the real subject of today's essay. My introduction to computers came in the fall of 1977 when the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune told me that we were going to start writing and transmitting our stories via computer and that if I didn't learn how to use one by the end of the year I was not going to the Super bowl. I was issued a stone age computer called a Teleram, an evil monstrosity that was so heavy it required two Romanian weight lifters to transport it.
It barely fit under an airplane seat and certainly left no room for any other carry-on luggage. It featured a screen so tiny you could barely get 200 words on it and here's the best part--when you filled the screen you had to send it to the office computer before continuing. This required dialing the proper number, listening for the tone, then inserting the telephone into two rubber couplers, making sure of a snug fit. Then you pressed a button and away went your copy. Sometimes it even went to the office. More frequently it went to Afghanistan or Marrakesh. Any nearby noise would send the machine into a hissy fit. It could be the guy next to you pounding on the table and cursing because his own computer had just gone wacko. If you were covering a basketball game at Purdue, where the press row was right in the middle of the maniacal fans, you had no shot. Eventually, after four or five failures, you might manage to get through to the home computer. Then you had to call up a new screen and try to remember how you had ended the previous screen so you could resume writing the story without its looking as if it had been written by a committee of idiots.
Over the years, the computers became more sophisticated and easier to use, but when I retired, almost 20 years later, I still couldn't do anything other than write and transmit a story via computer. When I retired and moved to Florida I finally got a home computer, but I still couldn't use if for anything other than writing a Christmas letter or an indignant letter to a usurious credit card firm. Finally, after much coaxing and cajoling from my now grownup children, I learned how to send and receive e-mail, and at long last to actually get on the internet.
That's where I discovered the subject ot today's text. Exactly a year ago today, Mike Freeman, national columnist for CBS SportsLine, posted a story titled, "Presenting the Top 50 Sports Jerks of All Time." It must have been well received because, as of yesterday, it was still there on the sports home page. In the interest of brevity and avoiding a possible plagiarism suit I won't reveal too much of it except to say that the top two jerks are murderers, one convicted, one not; that Dale Earnhardt is on it and A.J. Foyt isn't; and that Dave Kingman is way too far down the list at No. 48.
But where in the name of Leo Durocher is Alex Johnson? In 36 years of covering sports for The Tribune I ran into several athletes who refused to talk to me. That never bothered me, as long as they didn't talk to other writers, either. A silent Steve Carlton never bothered me. He didn't talk to writers, so what? His privilege. What did bother me was when an athlete would refuse to talk to me in the post game locker room and then whisper something into the ear of a competing writer. Tony Esposito did that to me after a tough loss in the Stanley Cup finals and that infuriated me.
It wasn't until years later, when I found myself sitting next to him on an airplane, that I found out he's really a pretty good guy. Veteran pitcher Ron Reed went straight to the top of my personal jerk list one night when I wasn't even talking to him. I was covering a White Sox game and, after a tough loss, I went to the locker room to talk to Carlton Fisk. Fisk was riding an exercise bike and I interrupted to ask him if he could talk. Reed, sitting in front of his locker a few feet away told me, "Don't bother him; he's busy." I informed Reed that Fisk was an adult and could speak for himself. Fisk did get off the bike and answered a few questions in his usual articulate manner.
But of all the athletes I ever tried to interview Alex Johnson was the only one who threatened me with bodily harm. Johnson, who had won the American League batting title the previous year, had so alienated his California Angels teammates with his blatant lack of hustle that, by midseason of 1971, they ostracised him and his manager refused to play him. I wrote a column saying that Johnson had great talent, was doing what he loved to do, but was throwing it all away. He had, I said "a private devil inside him" which was depriving him of enjoying the fruits of his talent. All in all I thought it was a sympathetic column. Up until then I had rather liked him. He had a reputtion for not talking to writers but I had interviewed him once when he was with Cincinnati and he was cordial enough.
I wasn't sure which Alex Johnson I'd be dealing with when, in spring training with the Cleveland Indians the next year, I approached him and introduced myself again as a writer for the Chicago Tribune. "Chicago Tribune," he repeated. "There was a writer for the Chicago Tribune last year who wrote an article I didn't like. He called me a devil." I confessed that I was the writer, but couldn't recall calling him a devil. I offered to look up the offending article and bring it to him the next time we met. "You do that," he said.
Before the Indians' first visit to Chicago that year I looked up the column and, although I hadn't exactly called him a devil, I wasn't going to argue the point. I admit I was extremely nervous when I went, column in hand, to Comiskey Park the next night. As I crossed the diamond to enter the visitor's dugout and locker room down the first base line I kept thinking of the old Indian in the movie "Little Big Man," who kept saying 'It is a good day to die."
The hell it was. When I reached the locker room, I was told that Johnson had arrived in a good humor. "He was smiling," I was informed. He was sitting facing his locker and reading a book, still smiling--until he saw me. I said, "I'm . . ." and that's as far as I got before he leaped off his chair and screamed, "I know who you are you blankety blank,blank,blanker." He then suggested that I get out of his face before he inflicted severe damage on mine. I agreed this was probably the best course of action and that was my last conversation with Alex Johnson. Does all this make Alex Johnson a jerk? I'm not certain. After all, one man's jerk is another man's idol.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
By Bob Markus
It was early in the week-end of the 108th U.S. Open golf tournament when commentator Johnny Miller was asked the question: Who's the greatest U.S. Open golfer in history? With no hesitation at all, Miller replied: Ben Hogan. This, of course, was before Tiger Woods' angst-ridden Houdini act, which brought him his third national championship, leaving the golf world in awe and Tiger just one Open victory short of the record.
Miller may have to change his mind some day. But not yet. There is no doubt that Woods' victory over a valiant Rocco Mediate was grand guignol theater at its best. It may be that this was the greatest U.S. Open ever and it may be that Tiger Woods is the best U.S. Open player of all time. But not yet.
Time is on Tiger's side. He is only 32 and so far ahead of the current mediocre field they'd have to cut off both his knees to catch him. Certainly he proved that, on one knee, he could take everything they threw at him and throw it right back. He was only 24 when he won his first U.S. Open and his three Open titles have come in an eight year span.
Ben Hogan didn't win his first professional tournament until he was 28 and he was 36 before he won his first Open. But anything you can say about Tiger Woods you can say about Ben Hogan. Play through pain? Huh! Hogan survived a headon collision with a Greyhound bus, a crash so severe he suffered a double fractured pelvis, fractured collar bone, fractured left ankle and life-threatening blood clots which were to torment him the rest of his life. Sixteen months later he won the U.S. Open for the second time, won it in a three-way playoff. And in those days he had to limp his way into a playoff through a pain-wracked 36-hole final on Saturday.
Tiger wins three Opens in eight years? Huh! Hogan won all four of his Opens in a six-year span and one of those years he was in the hospital recovering from the accident. If you discount that lost season, he won three in a row and four out of five. Like Tiger, Hogan was obsessed with the majors. In 1951 he played in only five tournaments, winning three of them and finishing second and fourth in the other two. Two of the victories were in the Masters and U.S. Open. In 1953 he won five of the six tournaments he entered, including all three of the majors in which he teed it up. He passed up the P.G.A. that year to play in--and win--his only British Open, at Carnoustie in Scotland. The Scots adored him, called him The Wee Ice Man, and by that time all of America adored him, too.
Before the accident Hogan was, as the actor Laurence Harvey says of his character in The Manchurian Candidate, "not loveable." The accident didn't change him, but it changed the public's perception of him. More specifically, it was the movie Follow The Sun, released in 1951, that wrought the change. Glenn Ford played Hogan and the physical resemblance was uncanny. The movie covered Hogan's career through the crash and up to his dramatic comeback victory in the 1950 Open. I remember seeing the movie with a couple of my golfing buddies and, like most of the rest of America, became a Ben Hogan fan. Arnold Palmer is generally given credit for golf's rise in popularity. But Hogan set the table for what was to become a moveable feast.
After his fourth Open win in '53, Hogan became obsessed with winning his fifth. He came close in 1955, losing in a playoff to unheralded Jack Fleck, even more of an unknown in his day as the journeyman Mediate was until this week-end. Fleck was from Davenport, Iowa, just across the Mississipi River from Moline, Il., where I was working at The Moline Dispatch at the time. I think I was the only guy rooting against Fleck in the entire Quad Cities.
The next year Hogan finished in a tie for second and, in 1960, was in a three way battle with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, then still an amateur, until spinning his approach at the 17th back into the water in the final round. Palmer won his first--and only--U.S. Open that day and Nicklaus finished second. An era was ended and another one was about to begin.
Nicklaus, too, has four U.S. Open wins and certainly belongs in the discussion. Until Nicklaus came along Hogan was considered by many as the greatest golfer ever if you discount the amateur Bobby Jones. Jack has succeeded Hogan in most minds by the sheer numbers of his victories. But if you're talking strictly about the U.S. Open, it took Jack 18 years to garner his four Open championships, 12 more than it took Hogan.
Now, it appears Tiger Woods is going to erase most of Nicklaus' records in the fullness of time. It is entirely likely that he will win five or even six U. S. Opens before he retires. When that happens it may be time for Johnny Miller--and me--to change our minds. But not yet.
It was early in the week-end of the 108th U.S. Open golf tournament when commentator Johnny Miller was asked the question: Who's the greatest U.S. Open golfer in history? With no hesitation at all, Miller replied: Ben Hogan. This, of course, was before Tiger Woods' angst-ridden Houdini act, which brought him his third national championship, leaving the golf world in awe and Tiger just one Open victory short of the record.
Miller may have to change his mind some day. But not yet. There is no doubt that Woods' victory over a valiant Rocco Mediate was grand guignol theater at its best. It may be that this was the greatest U.S. Open ever and it may be that Tiger Woods is the best U.S. Open player of all time. But not yet.
Time is on Tiger's side. He is only 32 and so far ahead of the current mediocre field they'd have to cut off both his knees to catch him. Certainly he proved that, on one knee, he could take everything they threw at him and throw it right back. He was only 24 when he won his first U.S. Open and his three Open titles have come in an eight year span.
Ben Hogan didn't win his first professional tournament until he was 28 and he was 36 before he won his first Open. But anything you can say about Tiger Woods you can say about Ben Hogan. Play through pain? Huh! Hogan survived a headon collision with a Greyhound bus, a crash so severe he suffered a double fractured pelvis, fractured collar bone, fractured left ankle and life-threatening blood clots which were to torment him the rest of his life. Sixteen months later he won the U.S. Open for the second time, won it in a three-way playoff. And in those days he had to limp his way into a playoff through a pain-wracked 36-hole final on Saturday.
Tiger wins three Opens in eight years? Huh! Hogan won all four of his Opens in a six-year span and one of those years he was in the hospital recovering from the accident. If you discount that lost season, he won three in a row and four out of five. Like Tiger, Hogan was obsessed with the majors. In 1951 he played in only five tournaments, winning three of them and finishing second and fourth in the other two. Two of the victories were in the Masters and U.S. Open. In 1953 he won five of the six tournaments he entered, including all three of the majors in which he teed it up. He passed up the P.G.A. that year to play in--and win--his only British Open, at Carnoustie in Scotland. The Scots adored him, called him The Wee Ice Man, and by that time all of America adored him, too.
Before the accident Hogan was, as the actor Laurence Harvey says of his character in The Manchurian Candidate, "not loveable." The accident didn't change him, but it changed the public's perception of him. More specifically, it was the movie Follow The Sun, released in 1951, that wrought the change. Glenn Ford played Hogan and the physical resemblance was uncanny. The movie covered Hogan's career through the crash and up to his dramatic comeback victory in the 1950 Open. I remember seeing the movie with a couple of my golfing buddies and, like most of the rest of America, became a Ben Hogan fan. Arnold Palmer is generally given credit for golf's rise in popularity. But Hogan set the table for what was to become a moveable feast.
After his fourth Open win in '53, Hogan became obsessed with winning his fifth. He came close in 1955, losing in a playoff to unheralded Jack Fleck, even more of an unknown in his day as the journeyman Mediate was until this week-end. Fleck was from Davenport, Iowa, just across the Mississipi River from Moline, Il., where I was working at The Moline Dispatch at the time. I think I was the only guy rooting against Fleck in the entire Quad Cities.
The next year Hogan finished in a tie for second and, in 1960, was in a three way battle with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, then still an amateur, until spinning his approach at the 17th back into the water in the final round. Palmer won his first--and only--U.S. Open that day and Nicklaus finished second. An era was ended and another one was about to begin.
Nicklaus, too, has four U.S. Open wins and certainly belongs in the discussion. Until Nicklaus came along Hogan was considered by many as the greatest golfer ever if you discount the amateur Bobby Jones. Jack has succeeded Hogan in most minds by the sheer numbers of his victories. But if you're talking strictly about the U.S. Open, it took Jack 18 years to garner his four Open championships, 12 more than it took Hogan.
Now, it appears Tiger Woods is going to erase most of Nicklaus' records in the fullness of time. It is entirely likely that he will win five or even six U. S. Opens before he retires. When that happens it may be time for Johnny Miller--and me--to change our minds. But not yet.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
By Bob Markus
As the King of Siam once said to Anna, "is a puzzlement." How in the name of all that's Holy Bull did Big Brown go so Real Quiet in the Belmont? Big Brown may rhyme with Triple Crown, but there appears to be neither rhyme nor reason for his stunning failure in what may be remembered as horse racing's biggest Upset since, well, Upset upset Man o' War way back in 1919.
In the immediate aftermath of Saturday's race, no one could offer an explanation for the previously unbeaten and virtually untested Big Brown's astonishing performance--or lack of same. "I have no idea," was the answer de jour, the response given by jockey Kent Desormeaux, trainer Rick Dutrow Jr., and Dr. Larry Bramlage, the on-call veterinarian. All three insisted that the colt was as sound as the dollar. Oops, wrong simile.
Dutrow was particularly unforthcoming, given his pre-race verbosity. The outspoken trainer, who had boldly been predicting a Triple Crown since before Big Brown's impressive Kentucky Derby victory, apparently was unaware of Joe Louis's famous adage: "He can run but he can't hide." In this instance it was Big Brown who couldn't run and Dutrow who couldn't hide, although both tried.
If there are no answers to be had there are certainly some questions to be asked. For instance, what's next for Big Brown? The colt's breeding rights already have been sold for $50 million, so an obvious option is to turn him into a racing Romeo, a decision that would doubtless please the S.P.C.A., not to mention Big Brown himself. But that begets another question or series of questions. How much has Saturday's debacle diminished Big Brown's value as a studly stallion? Can his reputation be rehabilitated by running in--and winning--the Travers Stakes and/or the Breeder's Cup Classic? And what if he enters the Travers or Classic and suffers another meltdown? One thing is fairly certain. Given the economics of the game, there is little chance that Big Brown will race beyond this year.
I've saved the best question for last. Name the winner of the 2008 Belmont Stakes. Let's see, is it De' Niro? Di' Tore? Da' Tara. That's it, Da' Tara. You may have noticed that halfway through this column the only one of the nine Belmont entrants discussed was the one that finished ninth. Da' Tara was and remains the Rodney Dangerfield of the turf world. Look him up on the internet and you will find 109,000 mentions. But 108,997 of them are more about Big Brown losing than Da' Tara winning.
In the weeks leading up to the Belmont, Da' Tara's owner, Robert LaPenta, was like Marjorie Main at the senior prom, waiting for someone to ask him a question about his horse. Any question. That is understandable. Da' Tara, after all, finished 23 1/2 lengths behind Big Brown in the Florida Derby and at 38-1 was the highest priced betting choice in the Belmont. What isn't quite as understandable is why so few people have expressed curiosity about the Belmont winner.
Was there any indication that this son of Tiznow, with only one career victory in seven starts could lead a mile and a half classic race from wire to wire? Well, there was, but you had to look mighty hard to find it. First of all, his sire had won the Breeder's Cup Classic on the same Belmont track, one of his two consecutive Classic victories. Then there was the fact that Da' Tara had finished second in his only appearance at Belmont in his first start as a 2-year-old.
Lastly there was this: On the same day and at the same Pimlico track where Big Brown was winning the Preakness, Da' Tara was finishing a strong second to Roman Emperor in the Barbaro Stakes. Six years earlier a horse named Savara won the same race, then called the Sir Barton Stakes, and followed it up by winning the Belmont as a 70-1 shot, foiling War Emblem's Triple Crown hopes. Throw in trainer Nick Zito, whose Birdstone had knocked off Smarty Jones, the last previous Triple Crown candidate to get that far, in the 2004 Belmont, and there is reason to at least pause before dismissing Da' Tara as a potential Belmont winner.
To be sure, that is rather convoluted thinking, but that, as the song "Fugue for Tinhorns" in the musical "Guys and Dolls" indicates is the way some people pick winners. "I've got the horse right here, his name is. . . ." what? Da' Tara? Tiz a puzzlement.
As the King of Siam once said to Anna, "is a puzzlement." How in the name of all that's Holy Bull did Big Brown go so Real Quiet in the Belmont? Big Brown may rhyme with Triple Crown, but there appears to be neither rhyme nor reason for his stunning failure in what may be remembered as horse racing's biggest Upset since, well, Upset upset Man o' War way back in 1919.
In the immediate aftermath of Saturday's race, no one could offer an explanation for the previously unbeaten and virtually untested Big Brown's astonishing performance--or lack of same. "I have no idea," was the answer de jour, the response given by jockey Kent Desormeaux, trainer Rick Dutrow Jr., and Dr. Larry Bramlage, the on-call veterinarian. All three insisted that the colt was as sound as the dollar. Oops, wrong simile.
Dutrow was particularly unforthcoming, given his pre-race verbosity. The outspoken trainer, who had boldly been predicting a Triple Crown since before Big Brown's impressive Kentucky Derby victory, apparently was unaware of Joe Louis's famous adage: "He can run but he can't hide." In this instance it was Big Brown who couldn't run and Dutrow who couldn't hide, although both tried.
If there are no answers to be had there are certainly some questions to be asked. For instance, what's next for Big Brown? The colt's breeding rights already have been sold for $50 million, so an obvious option is to turn him into a racing Romeo, a decision that would doubtless please the S.P.C.A., not to mention Big Brown himself. But that begets another question or series of questions. How much has Saturday's debacle diminished Big Brown's value as a studly stallion? Can his reputation be rehabilitated by running in--and winning--the Travers Stakes and/or the Breeder's Cup Classic? And what if he enters the Travers or Classic and suffers another meltdown? One thing is fairly certain. Given the economics of the game, there is little chance that Big Brown will race beyond this year.
I've saved the best question for last. Name the winner of the 2008 Belmont Stakes. Let's see, is it De' Niro? Di' Tore? Da' Tara. That's it, Da' Tara. You may have noticed that halfway through this column the only one of the nine Belmont entrants discussed was the one that finished ninth. Da' Tara was and remains the Rodney Dangerfield of the turf world. Look him up on the internet and you will find 109,000 mentions. But 108,997 of them are more about Big Brown losing than Da' Tara winning.
In the weeks leading up to the Belmont, Da' Tara's owner, Robert LaPenta, was like Marjorie Main at the senior prom, waiting for someone to ask him a question about his horse. Any question. That is understandable. Da' Tara, after all, finished 23 1/2 lengths behind Big Brown in the Florida Derby and at 38-1 was the highest priced betting choice in the Belmont. What isn't quite as understandable is why so few people have expressed curiosity about the Belmont winner.
Was there any indication that this son of Tiznow, with only one career victory in seven starts could lead a mile and a half classic race from wire to wire? Well, there was, but you had to look mighty hard to find it. First of all, his sire had won the Breeder's Cup Classic on the same Belmont track, one of his two consecutive Classic victories. Then there was the fact that Da' Tara had finished second in his only appearance at Belmont in his first start as a 2-year-old.
Lastly there was this: On the same day and at the same Pimlico track where Big Brown was winning the Preakness, Da' Tara was finishing a strong second to Roman Emperor in the Barbaro Stakes. Six years earlier a horse named Savara won the same race, then called the Sir Barton Stakes, and followed it up by winning the Belmont as a 70-1 shot, foiling War Emblem's Triple Crown hopes. Throw in trainer Nick Zito, whose Birdstone had knocked off Smarty Jones, the last previous Triple Crown candidate to get that far, in the 2004 Belmont, and there is reason to at least pause before dismissing Da' Tara as a potential Belmont winner.
To be sure, that is rather convoluted thinking, but that, as the song "Fugue for Tinhorns" in the musical "Guys and Dolls" indicates is the way some people pick winners. "I've got the horse right here, his name is. . . ." what? Da' Tara? Tiz a puzzlement.
Monday, June 2, 2008
By Bob Markus
It's just as well A.J. Liebling is not around to see what they've done to his "sweet science." That is the term the celebrated New Yorker writer gave to boxing, the sport he chronicalled with unparalleled pananche and passion. Certainly, there are those, and they are likely in the majority, who see nothing sweet about two men trying to knock each other senseless. But they proably never saw Sugar Ray Robinson take out Bobo Olson with a single, pure, devastating left hook or Muhammad Ali bait George Foreman into a deadly trap before dropping him like a stone in the middle of an African night.
Boxing may be cruel and politically incorrect, but there are those who love it, and I am one of them, although if you tell me I should be ashamed of myself Iwill not quarrel. Boxing can be brutal and it can be bloody, as I've learned sitting at ringside and recoiling from the spatters on the canvas in front of me. But it can be noble in its own way and I don't see how anyone could have sat through the three Ali-Frazier classics without feeling a deep admiration for both fighters. And it's the only sport I know where the combatants, no matter the mayhem they have just wrought on one another, routinely embrace at the end of the contest.
I've watched boxing since the heyday of the first Sugar Ray--Robinson (there was also a Sugar Ray Costner in that era)--and the two real life Rockys--Marciano and Graziano--and I've watched it through the era of Ali and the nouveau Sugar Ray--Leonard. Whenever I see boxing scheduled on TV I try to watch it, even if I don't know the fighters. And increasingly I don't.
But I do know this: that boxing as I know it and as Liebling knew it, is dangerously close to losing its significance. It is starting to look a lot like professional wrestling, with its phony posturing and costumes by Edith Head. Worse yet, with the burgeoning popularity of mixed martial arts, boxing is heading down the path to irrelevance.
Turn on a fight show these days and you're likely to find two men kicking each other in the shins, groin, or head and grovelling on the canvas like oldtime wrestlers. Strangler Lewis comes to mind. That's what I saw over the week-end when CBS presented a mixed martial arts card for the first time on network television. Given the taste of the American public for reality-based schlock, I'm sure it was the first of many.
Apparently there are few, if any, rules in MMA bouts. The contestants wear four ounce gloves, compared to the standard eight ounces for boxing matches, and they are open at the ends to provide the use of fingers when there is dirty work to be done on the mat. One bout was stopped because of an accidental finger poke to the eye. "That was fun," said Scott Smith, the recipient of the wayward digit, "but I wanted to continue. I probably would have gotten knocked out, but I'd rather be knocked out than have it end like that."
The main drawing card was a 34-year-old formerly homeless man named Kimbo Slice, not his real name, who got his start in street fights that were shown on the internet. In fact, he had had only two professional bouts but was a big betting favorite because, like Big Brown, the race horse, he had blitzed his opponents, neither of his bouts lasting as long as 45 seconds. But Kimbo found out that it takes more than a paralysing punch to be champion in this sport and it wasn't until the third and final round--rounds are five minutes each--that he finally dispatched veteran James "Colossus" Thompson. For the first two rounds Thompson had taken Kimbo to the mat and nearly to the cleaners.
Even if boxing survives the challenge of MMA, it appears headed in the same direction. Every boxer these days must have a nickname and a gimmick and every ring announcer must introduce both men as if they were Sultans of Bahrain. That started, of course, with Michael Buffer, whose clarion call of "Let's get ready to ruuuuumble" has become a cliche. Yet the crowd loves it.
The last real boxing I saw was a couple of weeks ago when one of the networks televised a card from England. In the first bout Paulie "Magic Man"Malignaggi was defending his version of the welterweight title against Lovemore "Black Panther" N'Dou, from whom he had won it. Malignaggi entered the ring wearing a full face blue mask and hair down to his ankles. He lost the first round because his hair kept getting in his eyes, so his cornermen used tape to tie it in a ponytail. That didn't work for very long, however, and the referee twice had to stop the bout while Malignaggi had his coiffure adjusted. About midway through the bout one of the cornermen showed a deft touch with a pair of scissors and gave his fighter a trim.
The main event was notable for the costumes the two combatants wore into the ring. Ricky Hatton wore electric blue shorts that came down to midcalf like the ones Michgan's Fab Five popularized. His opponent, Juan Lascano, wore a red outfit topped by a broad-brimmed sombrero that made him look like a member of a Mariachi band.
So this is what boxing is coming to. The sweet science is beginning to turn a little sour. And where will it all end? The logical train of progression would seem to end in fights to the death in packed stadiums filled with blood thirsty fanactics rendering split decisions on the fate of any survivors. But, hey, that's already been done, hasn't it?
It's just as well A.J. Liebling is not around to see what they've done to his "sweet science." That is the term the celebrated New Yorker writer gave to boxing, the sport he chronicalled with unparalleled pananche and passion. Certainly, there are those, and they are likely in the majority, who see nothing sweet about two men trying to knock each other senseless. But they proably never saw Sugar Ray Robinson take out Bobo Olson with a single, pure, devastating left hook or Muhammad Ali bait George Foreman into a deadly trap before dropping him like a stone in the middle of an African night.
Boxing may be cruel and politically incorrect, but there are those who love it, and I am one of them, although if you tell me I should be ashamed of myself Iwill not quarrel. Boxing can be brutal and it can be bloody, as I've learned sitting at ringside and recoiling from the spatters on the canvas in front of me. But it can be noble in its own way and I don't see how anyone could have sat through the three Ali-Frazier classics without feeling a deep admiration for both fighters. And it's the only sport I know where the combatants, no matter the mayhem they have just wrought on one another, routinely embrace at the end of the contest.
I've watched boxing since the heyday of the first Sugar Ray--Robinson (there was also a Sugar Ray Costner in that era)--and the two real life Rockys--Marciano and Graziano--and I've watched it through the era of Ali and the nouveau Sugar Ray--Leonard. Whenever I see boxing scheduled on TV I try to watch it, even if I don't know the fighters. And increasingly I don't.
But I do know this: that boxing as I know it and as Liebling knew it, is dangerously close to losing its significance. It is starting to look a lot like professional wrestling, with its phony posturing and costumes by Edith Head. Worse yet, with the burgeoning popularity of mixed martial arts, boxing is heading down the path to irrelevance.
Turn on a fight show these days and you're likely to find two men kicking each other in the shins, groin, or head and grovelling on the canvas like oldtime wrestlers. Strangler Lewis comes to mind. That's what I saw over the week-end when CBS presented a mixed martial arts card for the first time on network television. Given the taste of the American public for reality-based schlock, I'm sure it was the first of many.
Apparently there are few, if any, rules in MMA bouts. The contestants wear four ounce gloves, compared to the standard eight ounces for boxing matches, and they are open at the ends to provide the use of fingers when there is dirty work to be done on the mat. One bout was stopped because of an accidental finger poke to the eye. "That was fun," said Scott Smith, the recipient of the wayward digit, "but I wanted to continue. I probably would have gotten knocked out, but I'd rather be knocked out than have it end like that."
The main drawing card was a 34-year-old formerly homeless man named Kimbo Slice, not his real name, who got his start in street fights that were shown on the internet. In fact, he had had only two professional bouts but was a big betting favorite because, like Big Brown, the race horse, he had blitzed his opponents, neither of his bouts lasting as long as 45 seconds. But Kimbo found out that it takes more than a paralysing punch to be champion in this sport and it wasn't until the third and final round--rounds are five minutes each--that he finally dispatched veteran James "Colossus" Thompson. For the first two rounds Thompson had taken Kimbo to the mat and nearly to the cleaners.
Even if boxing survives the challenge of MMA, it appears headed in the same direction. Every boxer these days must have a nickname and a gimmick and every ring announcer must introduce both men as if they were Sultans of Bahrain. That started, of course, with Michael Buffer, whose clarion call of "Let's get ready to ruuuuumble" has become a cliche. Yet the crowd loves it.
The last real boxing I saw was a couple of weeks ago when one of the networks televised a card from England. In the first bout Paulie "Magic Man"Malignaggi was defending his version of the welterweight title against Lovemore "Black Panther" N'Dou, from whom he had won it. Malignaggi entered the ring wearing a full face blue mask and hair down to his ankles. He lost the first round because his hair kept getting in his eyes, so his cornermen used tape to tie it in a ponytail. That didn't work for very long, however, and the referee twice had to stop the bout while Malignaggi had his coiffure adjusted. About midway through the bout one of the cornermen showed a deft touch with a pair of scissors and gave his fighter a trim.
The main event was notable for the costumes the two combatants wore into the ring. Ricky Hatton wore electric blue shorts that came down to midcalf like the ones Michgan's Fab Five popularized. His opponent, Juan Lascano, wore a red outfit topped by a broad-brimmed sombrero that made him look like a member of a Mariachi band.
So this is what boxing is coming to. The sweet science is beginning to turn a little sour. And where will it all end? The logical train of progression would seem to end in fights to the death in packed stadiums filled with blood thirsty fanactics rendering split decisions on the fate of any survivors. But, hey, that's already been done, hasn't it?
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