By Bob Markus
Having just watched two disgraceful performances by my two favorite professional football teams, I'm ready to declare what I've felt all along: the college game is better. The players may not be as good or as well coached. They're certainly less experienced. Perhaps their game is less nuanced, less full-bodied. But, like a nouveau beaujolais compared to a mature cabernet, it is by far more sprightly. It is, I suppose, a matter of taste and while my palate tends to favor a big red wine, in football give me the saucier version.
Never has there been a better example of the divide between the two games than on the week-end just concluded with the New England Patriots 41-14 whomping of the Miami Dolphins. Saturday was a football fan's delight. I saw my first college football game 63 years ago (Notre Dame 26, Northwestern 19) and I've seen hundreds more since, most of them from a press box as a sports writer for The Chicago Tribune. I've seen some of the most storied games in college football history, from Texas' 15-14 national championship clinching victory over Arkansas in 1969 to Nebraska's 35-31 thriller over Oklahoma in 1971 to Miami's 26-25 win at Florida State in 1987 when Bobby Bowden went for two in the closing seconds and didn't make it.
Since retiring 14 years ago, almost all of my football viewing has been on television. It's not as rich an experience as being there. There's nothing like the feeling on a college campus on a football Saturday. But TV does give you the chance to watch many games on the same day. It's the rare game, especially a game featuring one of the elite teams, that you can't find somewhere on the television spectrum.
A baseball team owner once told me he loved the game because "there's an orgasm in every ball game." What he meant, he explained, was that in even the most one-sided game there comes a moment when one pitch, one swing of the bat, can turn the tide of the ball game. If the same is true of college football, then Saturday ws multiorgasmic. There were more choices for the football connoisseur than you'll find on the menu of your favorite Italian restaurant.
For my antipasto I chose Northwestern vs. Minnesota, a game won by the Wildcats, 29-28, on a last minute field goal by a kicker whose earlier missed extra point had been the reason his team was two points behind (the missed kick had forced Northwestern to try a two-point conversion after its next touchdown). For the second course I passed on Michigan State-Wisconsin, a battle of ranked unbeatens and chose to look in on Michigan at Indiana, mainly to watch Wolverine wunderkind Denard Robinson. The Michigan sophomore delivered a masterpiece, scoring on a 72-yard run the first time he carried the ball, and carrying the Wolverines on his back in the final minute on a 73-yard drive that ended with his 4-yard run for the game-winning touchdown. Somewhere in the post game wrapup I discovered that Tennessee had a 14-10 lead at LSU with a second left to play. I hastily scanned my TV listings and switched to that game just in time to see new Tennessee coach Derek Dooley angrily throw what appeared to be a radio handset to the ground and stalk off the field. That's when I found out that Tennessee actually had stopped LSU's last second try, but was penalized for having 13 men on the field. Since a game cannot end on a defensive penalty, LSU was awarded a play after time had expired. This time the Tigers had hammered it home and, since there were now about 10,013 men--and some women-- on the field, didn't try, or need, the extra point.
After a brief timeout to recharge my taste buds, I ordered dessert. I could have chosen the No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 7 Florida concoction, which came highly recommended, but chose to go with the high-calorie special, Stanford at Oregon. Good choice. After falling behind 21-3 in the first quarter, Oregon stormed back for a 52-31 victory, which not only was highly entertaining, but ultimately pushed the Ducks into the No. 3 spot in both national polls. Those who opted for the Alabama-Florida game were disappointed by a Florida team that collapsed like a soggy souffle. Oh, and did I mention that somewhere in the course of the evening I saw Washington beat Southern Cal 32-31 on a game-ending field goal? What a football Saturday it was !
Now it was the NFL's turn to strut its stuff. It's not that I don't like pro football. I've seen my share of big NFL games, but few of them have been truly exciting. In fact, the most famous game I covered, the Franco Harris "immaculate reception" game, was downright boring until the final two minutes. I covered 10 Super Bowls and only one of them was truly entertaining. I'll admit that in the last few years the Super bowl has produced some thrillers, the lone exception in the last five games being the Bears' humdrum loss to the Indianapolis Colts when the highlight for us Bear fans was the opening kickoff.
I didn't watch any of Sunday afternoon's NFL games, chosing to take my wife to a movie and maintain family tranquility rather than watch the Donovan McNab-Michael Vick showdown. Another good choice. From what I read in Monday's paper the movie (Jack Goes Boating) was better than any of the games and, as a reward for being a good boy, I got to watch the Bears-Giants game Sunday night (with an hour's break for "Dexter" in the first half.) It might have been the dullest football game in history and Bears' quarterback Jay Cutler probably is lucky that his ninth sack in the first half resulted in a concussion that, hopefuly, left him unable to remember the dirty details.
Then, last night brought the Patriots' romp over the Dolphins in which the Miami special teams unit gave away three touchdowns, a performance so awful that a local writer described it as "The Triple Crown of Terrible." I fell asleep in the second quarter of this one and woke up just as Brandon Tate was returning the second half kickoff for a New England touchdown. I soon went back to sleep and so did the Dolphins.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
By Bob Markus
Every so often, like maybe once a century or two, there occurs something so delicious, so right, that even a confirmed atheist might have to admit "maybe there is a God." This kind of near-epiphany happened for me a few weeks ago when I saw Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl blubbering like a baby on national TV. Perhaps Pearl was crying over the $1,500,00 that Tennessee is going to deduct from his paychecks over the next five years. Or was it just a reaction to his being exposed as a liar and a hypocrite? Pearl has admitted to lying and deliberately misleading the NCAA in its investigation of alleged violations in his basketball program.
This is the same Bruce Pearl who, two decades ago, sent a memo to the NCAA accusing Illinois basketball coaches of several violations in the recruitment of Chicago high school phenom Deon Thomas. Chief among the allegations was the charge that Jimmy Collins, then an assistant to Lou Henson at Illinois, had offered the 6-9 Thomas a car and $80,000 to play for the Illini. Pearl, then an assistant at Iowa, also sent a tape that he said he had made during a telephone call to Thomas after the Simeon High star had signed with Illinois.
"What has never been told," says Collins, "is that there were 18 phone converstions and out of all that he sent four inches of tape to the NCAA and the tape was spliced." After 16 months of investigation the NCAA cleared Collins of the charges, but found the school guilty of the dreaded "lack of institutional control," a catchall phrase that means, "we know you did something but we can't figure out what."
Neither Collins nor fellow Illinois assistant Mark Coombs shed any crocodile tears over the plight of Bruce, who, in addition to the lost income will be restricted to on campus recruiting for a year-- and that's just the punishment doled out by Tennessee. The NCAA has yet to conclude its own investigation. "I'm not angry anymore," says Collins, "but for me to say, 'I'm going to take the high road and say I feel sorry for Bruce,' my nose would grow like Pinocchio's." If anything Coombs, who spent the last 13 years of his coaching career as an assistant to Collins at Illinois-Chicago, is even more bitter about Pearl's role in the Thomas affair. "Justice will be served," Coombs says. "You don't want to wish ill on anybody, but what he did had a devastating effect on our program and on my professional career."
The professional paths of Pearl and the two former Illinois assistants were destined to cross again when Pearl became head coach of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which is in the same conference as Illinois-Chicago. In the four years Pearl coached in Milwaukee before going on to Tennessee he and Collins never shook hands after a game." "It was very tense," Coombs remembers. Pearl was immediately successful as a head coach and took Wisconsin-Milwaukee as far as the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament. There his journey ended in a loss to, ironically, Illinois, but it was Pearl's springboard to the Tennessee job.
I was covering Illinois basketball during the recruitment of Thomas and never felt there was any substance to Pearl's charges. Why would Thomas not want to go to Illinois where two of his former Simeon High school teammates already were playing for Henson? I admit I was somewhat biased because I had a personal relationship with Henson. My wife, Leslie, and I played bridge with Lou and Mary Henson and sometimes spent week-ends in their home. Leslie attended the wedding of one of the Henson daughters and I drove down to Champaign for the funeral of their son, Lou Jr. During the investigation, Henson and I often walked together in the morning, going inside the Assembly hall to walk during inclement weather. During one such morning constitutional I asked Lou whether there was any chance there was any truth to Pearl's charges and as best as I can recall, his answer was: "I don't think so. Jimmy tells me there isn't and I believe him." And I believed Lou. To those who don't know Henson the first impression might be, "would I buy a used car from this man?" and the answer is "yes." I have never met a sports writer who didn't like and trust Lou Henson, even the most cynical among us.
During the NCAA's investigation, Illinois hired a lawyer named Mike Slive to represent it. Slive and his partner, Mike Glazier, specialized in representing institutions under NCAA investigation. Glazier is still in the business, but Slive moved into athletic administrtion and is currently the commissioner of the Southeast Conference--of which Tennessee is a prominent member.
Collins says he didn't see Pearl's tear-filled mea culpa on national TV, but "five or six coaches called me right away. It's just ironic how a person who preached integrity and said it was his duty, that he had a calling and a need to turn us in, now says it's not good to tell the truth most of the time. I've known Bruce fo many, many years. He didn't just start doing what he got caught doing. He's a master of deception. I think he's a really good coach, but if you look up the definition of the word 'honesty' Bruce Pearl's picture definitely will not be there."
Every so often, like maybe once a century or two, there occurs something so delicious, so right, that even a confirmed atheist might have to admit "maybe there is a God." This kind of near-epiphany happened for me a few weeks ago when I saw Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl blubbering like a baby on national TV. Perhaps Pearl was crying over the $1,500,00 that Tennessee is going to deduct from his paychecks over the next five years. Or was it just a reaction to his being exposed as a liar and a hypocrite? Pearl has admitted to lying and deliberately misleading the NCAA in its investigation of alleged violations in his basketball program.
This is the same Bruce Pearl who, two decades ago, sent a memo to the NCAA accusing Illinois basketball coaches of several violations in the recruitment of Chicago high school phenom Deon Thomas. Chief among the allegations was the charge that Jimmy Collins, then an assistant to Lou Henson at Illinois, had offered the 6-9 Thomas a car and $80,000 to play for the Illini. Pearl, then an assistant at Iowa, also sent a tape that he said he had made during a telephone call to Thomas after the Simeon High star had signed with Illinois.
"What has never been told," says Collins, "is that there were 18 phone converstions and out of all that he sent four inches of tape to the NCAA and the tape was spliced." After 16 months of investigation the NCAA cleared Collins of the charges, but found the school guilty of the dreaded "lack of institutional control," a catchall phrase that means, "we know you did something but we can't figure out what."
Neither Collins nor fellow Illinois assistant Mark Coombs shed any crocodile tears over the plight of Bruce, who, in addition to the lost income will be restricted to on campus recruiting for a year-- and that's just the punishment doled out by Tennessee. The NCAA has yet to conclude its own investigation. "I'm not angry anymore," says Collins, "but for me to say, 'I'm going to take the high road and say I feel sorry for Bruce,' my nose would grow like Pinocchio's." If anything Coombs, who spent the last 13 years of his coaching career as an assistant to Collins at Illinois-Chicago, is even more bitter about Pearl's role in the Thomas affair. "Justice will be served," Coombs says. "You don't want to wish ill on anybody, but what he did had a devastating effect on our program and on my professional career."
The professional paths of Pearl and the two former Illinois assistants were destined to cross again when Pearl became head coach of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which is in the same conference as Illinois-Chicago. In the four years Pearl coached in Milwaukee before going on to Tennessee he and Collins never shook hands after a game." "It was very tense," Coombs remembers. Pearl was immediately successful as a head coach and took Wisconsin-Milwaukee as far as the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament. There his journey ended in a loss to, ironically, Illinois, but it was Pearl's springboard to the Tennessee job.
I was covering Illinois basketball during the recruitment of Thomas and never felt there was any substance to Pearl's charges. Why would Thomas not want to go to Illinois where two of his former Simeon High school teammates already were playing for Henson? I admit I was somewhat biased because I had a personal relationship with Henson. My wife, Leslie, and I played bridge with Lou and Mary Henson and sometimes spent week-ends in their home. Leslie attended the wedding of one of the Henson daughters and I drove down to Champaign for the funeral of their son, Lou Jr. During the investigation, Henson and I often walked together in the morning, going inside the Assembly hall to walk during inclement weather. During one such morning constitutional I asked Lou whether there was any chance there was any truth to Pearl's charges and as best as I can recall, his answer was: "I don't think so. Jimmy tells me there isn't and I believe him." And I believed Lou. To those who don't know Henson the first impression might be, "would I buy a used car from this man?" and the answer is "yes." I have never met a sports writer who didn't like and trust Lou Henson, even the most cynical among us.
During the NCAA's investigation, Illinois hired a lawyer named Mike Slive to represent it. Slive and his partner, Mike Glazier, specialized in representing institutions under NCAA investigation. Glazier is still in the business, but Slive moved into athletic administrtion and is currently the commissioner of the Southeast Conference--of which Tennessee is a prominent member.
Collins says he didn't see Pearl's tear-filled mea culpa on national TV, but "five or six coaches called me right away. It's just ironic how a person who preached integrity and said it was his duty, that he had a calling and a need to turn us in, now says it's not good to tell the truth most of the time. I've known Bruce fo many, many years. He didn't just start doing what he got caught doing. He's a master of deception. I think he's a really good coach, but if you look up the definition of the word 'honesty' Bruce Pearl's picture definitely will not be there."
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
By Bob Markus
Like the little engine that could, the Boise State football express is still chugging along. The track ahead is clear and there appears to be nothing to keep the Broncos from high balling into a national championship game. It seems absurd on the face of it to declare any team a sure thing after only one game, let alone hitching a band wagon to a school from an outpost so remote it may as well be in outer space. As a longtime college football writer for the Chicago Tribune, I thought I had been to every campus that housed a football team that mattered, but I've never been to Boise State. In fact, Idaho is one of the four states in the continental United States I've never visited. All I knew about Idaho was that Ernest Hemingway shot himself there and that they grow potatoes in profusion. But since retiring more than a dozen years ago, like a lot of other college football fans, I've fallen in love with Boise State.
What's not to love? The Broncos have overcome nearly impossible odds to put their state, their city, and their blue carpeted football stadium on the map. In the last eight years a Boise State loss in football has been as rare as a Republican alderman in Chicago. They've so dominated the Western Athletic Conference that they might as well be awarded the championship trophy at the end of spring practice. They're 60-1 in conference play in that time, the lone loss a 27-20 defeat at Fresno State in 2005, a year that will live in infamy in Boise. Their record that year was 9-4 and it included the most painful loss in school history. The Broncos had come swaggering into Georgia for the season opener as no one had since General Sherman. This time it was the interloper who got torched. The Broncos took such a dreadful whipping between the hedges that they may still be feeling the sting to this day. Certainly, that 48-13 loss may still be a factor in Boise State's ongoing quest for respect. The not ready for prime time Broncos began burnishing their image the next year when they went 13-0, including a 43-42 thriller over Oklahoma in what many believe was the best college football game ever. Coming as it did in the Fiesta Bowl, one of the BCS venues that had previously been closed to the upstart Broncos, it opened some eyes. When Boise State went 14-0 last season, including another Fiesta bowl victory, the impossible gave way to the merely improbable. Considering that they return 20 of their 22 starters, the Broncos can be forgiven for chanting, "We know we can, we know we can."
And, using their No. 3 preseason ranking and Monday night's 33-30 win over a ranked opponent, on the road, as a springboard, yes they can. They will need to run the table to even get a chance to play for the title. That certainly appears doable, with the toughest test coming up in three weeks against Oregon State. But that game will be played on the friendly blue turf in Boise, where the Broncos have been as untouchable as Elliott Ness. After that it's the usual suspects, all of whom will be huge underdogs. That is not only the Broncos' blessing, but their curse. The strength of schedule issue is not going to go away. If the two teams ranked ahead of them, Alabama and Ohio State, go undefeated, there's no way Boise State gets a sniff of the title game. That's probably fair. Do Alabama and Ohio State face tougher opposition than Boise State? Yes they do. But whether they can weather the tough conference grind is another story. My guess is that they'll both have at least one loss come bowl time. In fact, with Alabama hosting Penn State and Ohio State hosting Miami this Saturday, it's entirely possible that Boise State could be No.1 by Sunday morning. This Saturday, in fact, is a pivotal one for several teams. Florida State travels to Oklahoma in one crucial contest where we'll find out if the Seminoles' 59-6 rout of Samford trumps the Sooners' pedestrian one touchdown win over Utah State. While neither Notre Dame nor Michigan figures to challenge for the national title, their Saturday showdown in South Bend is one of the most important the two bigtime schools have played. It will be a small step forward for the winner, but a huge step backward for the loser.
In addition to the race for the national championship, the race for the Heisman trophy will swing into high gear. The campaign for Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore nearly sank along with the Broncos' title hopes Monday night, but Moore brought it all back when he led his team to the winning touchdown with just 69 seconds remaining. Until then, Moore had been outplayed by Virginia Tech's Tyrod Taylor. Moore was one of the preseason favorites, but the Heisman does not always go to a known quantity. Who had ever heard of Mark Ingram before the Alabama sophomore running back won it last year? With Ingram possibly out for a second week after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery, his hopes for a repeat appear to be fading fast. Stepping forward just as fast could be Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson, who set a school record with 383 yards last Saturday in a victory over Connecticut. Robinson has the quirky habit of never tying his shoe laces. So if he falls flat on his face against the Irish, you'll know why.
Like the little engine that could, the Boise State football express is still chugging along. The track ahead is clear and there appears to be nothing to keep the Broncos from high balling into a national championship game. It seems absurd on the face of it to declare any team a sure thing after only one game, let alone hitching a band wagon to a school from an outpost so remote it may as well be in outer space. As a longtime college football writer for the Chicago Tribune, I thought I had been to every campus that housed a football team that mattered, but I've never been to Boise State. In fact, Idaho is one of the four states in the continental United States I've never visited. All I knew about Idaho was that Ernest Hemingway shot himself there and that they grow potatoes in profusion. But since retiring more than a dozen years ago, like a lot of other college football fans, I've fallen in love with Boise State.
What's not to love? The Broncos have overcome nearly impossible odds to put their state, their city, and their blue carpeted football stadium on the map. In the last eight years a Boise State loss in football has been as rare as a Republican alderman in Chicago. They've so dominated the Western Athletic Conference that they might as well be awarded the championship trophy at the end of spring practice. They're 60-1 in conference play in that time, the lone loss a 27-20 defeat at Fresno State in 2005, a year that will live in infamy in Boise. Their record that year was 9-4 and it included the most painful loss in school history. The Broncos had come swaggering into Georgia for the season opener as no one had since General Sherman. This time it was the interloper who got torched. The Broncos took such a dreadful whipping between the hedges that they may still be feeling the sting to this day. Certainly, that 48-13 loss may still be a factor in Boise State's ongoing quest for respect. The not ready for prime time Broncos began burnishing their image the next year when they went 13-0, including a 43-42 thriller over Oklahoma in what many believe was the best college football game ever. Coming as it did in the Fiesta Bowl, one of the BCS venues that had previously been closed to the upstart Broncos, it opened some eyes. When Boise State went 14-0 last season, including another Fiesta bowl victory, the impossible gave way to the merely improbable. Considering that they return 20 of their 22 starters, the Broncos can be forgiven for chanting, "We know we can, we know we can."
And, using their No. 3 preseason ranking and Monday night's 33-30 win over a ranked opponent, on the road, as a springboard, yes they can. They will need to run the table to even get a chance to play for the title. That certainly appears doable, with the toughest test coming up in three weeks against Oregon State. But that game will be played on the friendly blue turf in Boise, where the Broncos have been as untouchable as Elliott Ness. After that it's the usual suspects, all of whom will be huge underdogs. That is not only the Broncos' blessing, but their curse. The strength of schedule issue is not going to go away. If the two teams ranked ahead of them, Alabama and Ohio State, go undefeated, there's no way Boise State gets a sniff of the title game. That's probably fair. Do Alabama and Ohio State face tougher opposition than Boise State? Yes they do. But whether they can weather the tough conference grind is another story. My guess is that they'll both have at least one loss come bowl time. In fact, with Alabama hosting Penn State and Ohio State hosting Miami this Saturday, it's entirely possible that Boise State could be No.1 by Sunday morning. This Saturday, in fact, is a pivotal one for several teams. Florida State travels to Oklahoma in one crucial contest where we'll find out if the Seminoles' 59-6 rout of Samford trumps the Sooners' pedestrian one touchdown win over Utah State. While neither Notre Dame nor Michigan figures to challenge for the national title, their Saturday showdown in South Bend is one of the most important the two bigtime schools have played. It will be a small step forward for the winner, but a huge step backward for the loser.
In addition to the race for the national championship, the race for the Heisman trophy will swing into high gear. The campaign for Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore nearly sank along with the Broncos' title hopes Monday night, but Moore brought it all back when he led his team to the winning touchdown with just 69 seconds remaining. Until then, Moore had been outplayed by Virginia Tech's Tyrod Taylor. Moore was one of the preseason favorites, but the Heisman does not always go to a known quantity. Who had ever heard of Mark Ingram before the Alabama sophomore running back won it last year? With Ingram possibly out for a second week after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery, his hopes for a repeat appear to be fading fast. Stepping forward just as fast could be Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson, who set a school record with 383 yards last Saturday in a victory over Connecticut. Robinson has the quirky habit of never tying his shoe laces. So if he falls flat on his face against the Irish, you'll know why.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
By Bob Markus
By rights, I should have been in class at the University of Illinois-Chicago. But I had gone instead to my dentist, who also was my cousin, to have an abcessed tooth extracted. Those were not the golden days of dentistry and I was in considerable pain, an ice pack planted against my swollen jaw, as I watched the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants battle for the National league pennant in the rubber match of their three game playoff series.
The Giants had been chasing the Dodgers for seven frantic weeks, having fallen behind by 13 1/2 games in mid-August. There was no way the Giants were going to do it. It was like asking a sprinter to give Usain Bolt a 10-meter head start in a 100 -meter dash. But the Giants went 37-7 over the final 44 games and finally caught up with the hated inter-borough rivals on the final day of the season. Now, it appeared that it was all in vain. Entering the ninth inning, the Dodgers had a 4-1 lead and their ace, Don Newcombe, pitching. I was rooting for the Giants for reasons I cannot now remember or explain and I saw no reason to be optimistic. Newcombe had already thrown 18 complete games and seemed to be in total command. But by the time Bobby Thomson stepped into the batter's box with one out, there were runners at second and third and the deficit was only 4-2. I was beginning to regain hope, because Newcombe was out of the game and even if reliever Ralph Branca handled Thomson, he still had to contend with the ondeck hitter, Willie Mays.
Thomson had beaten Branca and the Dodgers with a two-run homer in the first game of the playoff series, but I was looking only for a single, which would tie the game. Thomson was looking for more and Branca was looking for a place to hide after Thomson poked the ball barely over the short left field fence in the Polo Grounds. It wasn't the longest home run ever hit, but it was the most dramatic and it made legends out of both Thomson and Giants' announcer Russ Hodges, whose call: "The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant," resonates down through the ages. I can still see Dodger left fielder Andy Pafko slumped against the left field wall, having run out of real estate in his vain chase of the lethal fly ball, I can still see Eddie Stanky jumping into Leo Durocher's arm as the jubilant Giants swarmed the field. It was then and remains still baseball's most memorable moment.
Thomson's passing last week brought back those memories in technicolor, strange, because the game was played in black and white. It got me to thinking: What other single moments will be remembered as long as baseball is played. If you want to walk down that road, however, you'd better beware. As Harry Caray used to say when a tough hitter stepped up to the plate: "There's danger here, Cheri." It is all too easy to get caught up in the moment and image that moment will linger into eternity. I confess I've been guilty of it myself. I remember a game where the Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder, Matty Alou, dropped a fly ball that gave the Chicago Cubs a critical victory late in the 1970 season. Writing for the Chicago Tribune, I said that the play would live in infamy or some such balderdash, but in reality it was long forgotten by the time the Pirates had won the N.L. East by five games over the Cubs. Later that year, while covering my first world series game, I wrote that a pivotal play at the plate, which gave the Baltimore Orioles a 4-3 win over Cincinnati, would be remembered for as long as the world series was played. Except for the players involved, I'm probably the only one who remembers it. But baseball, perhaps because of the nature of the game, the rhythm of the season, probably has more myth-making moments than any other sport. Here are my top 10:
No. 10--Ted Williams hits three-run homer off Claude Passeau with two out in the bottom of the ninth to give American League a 7-5 victory over the Nationals in the 1941 All-Star game. Or, if you prefer, Williams' four hit, two homer performance in a 12-0 rout of the NL in the 1946 game. The second blast came off Rip Sewell's famous ephus pitch.
No. 9--Ozzie Smith's walkoff homer in the fifth game of the 1985 NLCS, made memorable because it was his first ever homer as a left handed hitter after 3009 at bats. Also memorable was Jack Buck's call: "Go crazy, folks. Go crazy."
No.8--Ray Chapman dies after beaning. Chapman, the Cleveland Indians shortstop, was not a run-of-the-mill player. He was a gifted fielder, who batted .300 or better three times and led the Indians in steals four times. He was hitting .303 with 97 runs scored at the time of his death. On Aug. 16, 1920, Chapman, who apparently did not see the ball clearly, was hit in the head by Yankees pitcher Carl Mays. The sound of the impact was so loud that Mays, thinking the ball had contacted Chapman's bat, fielded the ball and threw it to first base. Accounts vary, but Chapman apparently took a step toward first base before collapsing. He was helped off the field, supported by several players, and taken to a hospital, where he died 12 hours later. The Indians went on to win their first ever pennant and world series.
No.7--Gabby Hartnett's "homer in the gloamin'." Trailing the Pirates by 1/2 game, the Cubs entertained Pittsburgh in Wrigley Field on Sept. 28, 1938. Going into the bottom of the ninth the score was tied 5-5. Darkness was closing in and Wrigley, of course, would not get lights for another 45 years. It was obvious the umpires were going to call the game after the Cubs' final at bat and the game would need to be replayed. But Hartnett, the Cubs' catcher and manager, took matters into his own hands when he sent a two-out, two-strike pitch screaming into the gathering dark. The Cubs went on to win the pennant.
No.6--The Merkle bonehead play. Locked in a tight pennant race, the Chicago Cubs and New York Giants met on Sept. 23, 1908, in New York. With the game tied in the ninth and Moose McCormick on first, Merkle, a 19-year-old rookie and the youngest player in the majors, singled McCormick around to third. Al Bridwell's single brought McCormick home with the winning run and thousands of ecstatic fans swarmed onto the field. But, wait. In part to protect himself from the mob, Merkle got halfway to second and peeled off to get to the Giants' dugout. Seeing this Cubs' second baseman Johnny Evers called for the ball. One was produced from somewhere and Evers tagged second base, essentially forcing Merkle at second. Evers appealed to umpire Hank O'Day, who ruled that Merkle was out. The game was ruled a tie and when the two teams tied for first place in the National league it was replayed, again in New York. The Cubs went on to win the game, the pennant, and the world series. Little did they know that 102 years later they'd still be looking for another world championship
No.5--Willie Mays' catch. The Cleveland Indians were heavy favorites to beat the New York Giants in the 1954 world series. But in Game one in the Polo Grounds, Mays made a catch that turned the entire series upside down. With two runners on base the Indians' Vic Wertz launched a drive to dead center field where the wall stood nearly 500 feet from home plate. It appeared a certainty that the drive would easily score both runners, but Mays turned his back to the plate and sprinted in hot pursuit, finally making an over-the-shoulder basket catch a few strides from the wall. The Giants went on to win the game and the series in a stunning four-game sweep.
No. 4--Bill Mazeroski's walkoff homer. It was game seven in the 1960 World Series and the Yankees had just tied the game 9-9 with a pair of runs in the top of the ninth. But the tie didn't last long. Mazeroski, not known as a home run hitter, drove a Ralph Terry pitch over the wall, the first walkoff homer in a world series clinching game. It was a strange series in other ways. The Yankees' three wins were by scores of 12-0, 10-0, and 16-3. The Pirates four wins all were in tight games. Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson had a monumental series, with 11 hits, five of them for extra bases, and 12 runs batted in. But it was the Pirates' second baseman who always will be remembered.
No.3--Babe Ruth's called shot. This one is as close to myth as it is to reality. Did Babe Ruth point to center field in Wrigley field, before launching a titanic homer to that very spot in the 1932 world series? Who knows? Who cares? It may be a made up story, but its such a good story it's not going to die. I once looked up the Tribune sports page for the day after the Ruthian swat and found that of the half dozen writers who had stories or columns that day only Westbrook Pegler referred to the called shot.
No.2--Kirk Gibson's shocker. Gibson was not supposed to play in the 1988 world series, having injured both legs in the NLCS victory over the Mets. That's one reason the Oakland A's were the heavy favorites to win the series. Gibson was just a spectator for eight and a half innings, but in the bottom of the ninth with two out and a man on base, trailing 4-3, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called for his MVP. Gibson limped to the plate, ran the count to 3-2 against relief ace Dennis Eckersley, then bashed the game-winner into the right field seats. He limped around the bases, pumping his fist, while Jack Buck screamed into his microphone, "I can't believe what I just saw." Neither could most fans. That was to be Gibson's lone appearance in the series, but it inspired his teammates to a five-game series triumph.
No. 1--Thomson's homer, of course.
By rights, I should have been in class at the University of Illinois-Chicago. But I had gone instead to my dentist, who also was my cousin, to have an abcessed tooth extracted. Those were not the golden days of dentistry and I was in considerable pain, an ice pack planted against my swollen jaw, as I watched the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants battle for the National league pennant in the rubber match of their three game playoff series.
The Giants had been chasing the Dodgers for seven frantic weeks, having fallen behind by 13 1/2 games in mid-August. There was no way the Giants were going to do it. It was like asking a sprinter to give Usain Bolt a 10-meter head start in a 100 -meter dash. But the Giants went 37-7 over the final 44 games and finally caught up with the hated inter-borough rivals on the final day of the season. Now, it appeared that it was all in vain. Entering the ninth inning, the Dodgers had a 4-1 lead and their ace, Don Newcombe, pitching. I was rooting for the Giants for reasons I cannot now remember or explain and I saw no reason to be optimistic. Newcombe had already thrown 18 complete games and seemed to be in total command. But by the time Bobby Thomson stepped into the batter's box with one out, there were runners at second and third and the deficit was only 4-2. I was beginning to regain hope, because Newcombe was out of the game and even if reliever Ralph Branca handled Thomson, he still had to contend with the ondeck hitter, Willie Mays.
Thomson had beaten Branca and the Dodgers with a two-run homer in the first game of the playoff series, but I was looking only for a single, which would tie the game. Thomson was looking for more and Branca was looking for a place to hide after Thomson poked the ball barely over the short left field fence in the Polo Grounds. It wasn't the longest home run ever hit, but it was the most dramatic and it made legends out of both Thomson and Giants' announcer Russ Hodges, whose call: "The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant," resonates down through the ages. I can still see Dodger left fielder Andy Pafko slumped against the left field wall, having run out of real estate in his vain chase of the lethal fly ball, I can still see Eddie Stanky jumping into Leo Durocher's arm as the jubilant Giants swarmed the field. It was then and remains still baseball's most memorable moment.
Thomson's passing last week brought back those memories in technicolor, strange, because the game was played in black and white. It got me to thinking: What other single moments will be remembered as long as baseball is played. If you want to walk down that road, however, you'd better beware. As Harry Caray used to say when a tough hitter stepped up to the plate: "There's danger here, Cheri." It is all too easy to get caught up in the moment and image that moment will linger into eternity. I confess I've been guilty of it myself. I remember a game where the Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder, Matty Alou, dropped a fly ball that gave the Chicago Cubs a critical victory late in the 1970 season. Writing for the Chicago Tribune, I said that the play would live in infamy or some such balderdash, but in reality it was long forgotten by the time the Pirates had won the N.L. East by five games over the Cubs. Later that year, while covering my first world series game, I wrote that a pivotal play at the plate, which gave the Baltimore Orioles a 4-3 win over Cincinnati, would be remembered for as long as the world series was played. Except for the players involved, I'm probably the only one who remembers it. But baseball, perhaps because of the nature of the game, the rhythm of the season, probably has more myth-making moments than any other sport. Here are my top 10:
No. 10--Ted Williams hits three-run homer off Claude Passeau with two out in the bottom of the ninth to give American League a 7-5 victory over the Nationals in the 1941 All-Star game. Or, if you prefer, Williams' four hit, two homer performance in a 12-0 rout of the NL in the 1946 game. The second blast came off Rip Sewell's famous ephus pitch.
No. 9--Ozzie Smith's walkoff homer in the fifth game of the 1985 NLCS, made memorable because it was his first ever homer as a left handed hitter after 3009 at bats. Also memorable was Jack Buck's call: "Go crazy, folks. Go crazy."
No.8--Ray Chapman dies after beaning. Chapman, the Cleveland Indians shortstop, was not a run-of-the-mill player. He was a gifted fielder, who batted .300 or better three times and led the Indians in steals four times. He was hitting .303 with 97 runs scored at the time of his death. On Aug. 16, 1920, Chapman, who apparently did not see the ball clearly, was hit in the head by Yankees pitcher Carl Mays. The sound of the impact was so loud that Mays, thinking the ball had contacted Chapman's bat, fielded the ball and threw it to first base. Accounts vary, but Chapman apparently took a step toward first base before collapsing. He was helped off the field, supported by several players, and taken to a hospital, where he died 12 hours later. The Indians went on to win their first ever pennant and world series.
No.7--Gabby Hartnett's "homer in the gloamin'." Trailing the Pirates by 1/2 game, the Cubs entertained Pittsburgh in Wrigley Field on Sept. 28, 1938. Going into the bottom of the ninth the score was tied 5-5. Darkness was closing in and Wrigley, of course, would not get lights for another 45 years. It was obvious the umpires were going to call the game after the Cubs' final at bat and the game would need to be replayed. But Hartnett, the Cubs' catcher and manager, took matters into his own hands when he sent a two-out, two-strike pitch screaming into the gathering dark. The Cubs went on to win the pennant.
No.6--The Merkle bonehead play. Locked in a tight pennant race, the Chicago Cubs and New York Giants met on Sept. 23, 1908, in New York. With the game tied in the ninth and Moose McCormick on first, Merkle, a 19-year-old rookie and the youngest player in the majors, singled McCormick around to third. Al Bridwell's single brought McCormick home with the winning run and thousands of ecstatic fans swarmed onto the field. But, wait. In part to protect himself from the mob, Merkle got halfway to second and peeled off to get to the Giants' dugout. Seeing this Cubs' second baseman Johnny Evers called for the ball. One was produced from somewhere and Evers tagged second base, essentially forcing Merkle at second. Evers appealed to umpire Hank O'Day, who ruled that Merkle was out. The game was ruled a tie and when the two teams tied for first place in the National league it was replayed, again in New York. The Cubs went on to win the game, the pennant, and the world series. Little did they know that 102 years later they'd still be looking for another world championship
No.5--Willie Mays' catch. The Cleveland Indians were heavy favorites to beat the New York Giants in the 1954 world series. But in Game one in the Polo Grounds, Mays made a catch that turned the entire series upside down. With two runners on base the Indians' Vic Wertz launched a drive to dead center field where the wall stood nearly 500 feet from home plate. It appeared a certainty that the drive would easily score both runners, but Mays turned his back to the plate and sprinted in hot pursuit, finally making an over-the-shoulder basket catch a few strides from the wall. The Giants went on to win the game and the series in a stunning four-game sweep.
No. 4--Bill Mazeroski's walkoff homer. It was game seven in the 1960 World Series and the Yankees had just tied the game 9-9 with a pair of runs in the top of the ninth. But the tie didn't last long. Mazeroski, not known as a home run hitter, drove a Ralph Terry pitch over the wall, the first walkoff homer in a world series clinching game. It was a strange series in other ways. The Yankees' three wins were by scores of 12-0, 10-0, and 16-3. The Pirates four wins all were in tight games. Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson had a monumental series, with 11 hits, five of them for extra bases, and 12 runs batted in. But it was the Pirates' second baseman who always will be remembered.
No.3--Babe Ruth's called shot. This one is as close to myth as it is to reality. Did Babe Ruth point to center field in Wrigley field, before launching a titanic homer to that very spot in the 1932 world series? Who knows? Who cares? It may be a made up story, but its such a good story it's not going to die. I once looked up the Tribune sports page for the day after the Ruthian swat and found that of the half dozen writers who had stories or columns that day only Westbrook Pegler referred to the called shot.
No.2--Kirk Gibson's shocker. Gibson was not supposed to play in the 1988 world series, having injured both legs in the NLCS victory over the Mets. That's one reason the Oakland A's were the heavy favorites to win the series. Gibson was just a spectator for eight and a half innings, but in the bottom of the ninth with two out and a man on base, trailing 4-3, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called for his MVP. Gibson limped to the plate, ran the count to 3-2 against relief ace Dennis Eckersley, then bashed the game-winner into the right field seats. He limped around the bases, pumping his fist, while Jack Buck screamed into his microphone, "I can't believe what I just saw." Neither could most fans. That was to be Gibson's lone appearance in the series, but it inspired his teammates to a five-game series triumph.
No. 1--Thomson's homer, of course.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
By Bob Markus
Before pronouncing the last rites over Tiger Woods' career, it might be well to make sure that the deceased is really dead. Although we are all aware that Woods shot a career worst 18 over par in last week-end's Bridgestone Invitational, very few of us actually witnessed the ghastly event. So wretchedly did Woods perform that by the week-end, when the majority of viewers are free to watch golf on television, Tiger was relegated to the dawn patrol, seen only in sound bites, having started--and finished--his rounds before the live cameras were turned on. Perhaps it's just as well. Even those who can no longer abide the sight of the once universally admired golfer would not have enjoyed watching his self-immolation. My first thought was of the last words of Edward G. Robinson's character in the movie "Little Caesar." A depression era gangster modelled on Al Capone, the mortally wounded Rico Bandello, chillingly portrayed by Robinson, gasps: "Can this be the end of Rico?
Can this be the end of Tiger? Probably not. Can this be the end of the Tiger Woods who has dominated golf almost from the day he earned his pro tour card? Much more likely. Woods' fall from the pinnacle of his profession to the depths of golfing hell is shocking and unprecedented. I've tried to think of another athlete in any sport who has fallen so far and so fast. I can't. First of all, few athletes have ever risen to the heights that Woods attained. Sure, baseball has had its Steve Blass, a world series hero one year, a has-been pitcher the next, unable to throw the ball over the plate if his livelihood depended on it. Which it did. The Chicago Cubs even now are wondering what happened to Carlos Zambrano, a double digit winner for six consecutive seasons who started going south almost the very minute he signed a mega-million dollar contract.
Likewise the Detroit Tigers, who acquired Dontrelle Willis in a trade three years after the crowd pleasing lefty had won 22 games for the Florida Marlins. The Tigers shuttled the increasingly ineffective pitcher back and forth to the minors for two years before finally shuffling him off to Arizona. Fortunately for Detroit General Manager Dave Dombrowski's sanity the trade with the Marlins also brought them Miguel Cabrera, one of the game's elite hitters. Probably an even better example is another Detroit pitcher from an earlier era, Mark Fidrych, who captivated baseball fans in his rookie year when he went 19-9 with 24 complete games and did it with panache. He won only 10 games over the next four seasons and was out of baseball at the age of 26. But none of those pitchers was even close to being the dominant performer that Woods has been.
The closest I can come to finding a precedent for Tiger's situation is race car driver Tim Richmond, who burst onto the scene in 1980 as rookie of the year in Indianapolis and two months later embarked on a NASCAR career that would see him win 13 races in a six-year span. The last two years of his life would be shrouded in mystery and controversy. He died in 1989 at the age of 34, having lived the life advocated by Nick Romano, the hero of Willard Motley's novel "Knock on Any Door," whose mantra was: Live fast, die young, and have a good looking corpse. I covered the 1980 Indy 500 for the Chicago Tribune and although I knew him for only three weeks, Richmond became one of my favorite drivers. He was the talk of the Speedway in the week leading up to qualifying, but on pole day he crashed during the morning practice. That cost him any shot at the pole, but he qualified with relative ease and was racy enough on race day to earn Rookie of the Year honors. He led one lap, finished ninth and ran out of fuel with three laps to go. The last I ever saw of him he was hitching a ride back to the pits on race winner Johnny Rutherford's front wing. The crowd loved it. A few months later, Richmond switched to NASCAR and I switched to baseball, but I followed his progress as best I could. He mostly was spinning his wheels for the first five years, but in 1986 came a switch to the Rick Hendricks team and a breakthrough year. He won seven races that year and finished third in the point standings. But he missed the Daytona 500 at the start of the 1987 season and already the rumors were starting. He was on drugs. He had AIDS. The official reason for his absence was described as double pneumonia. He came back later in the year to win back-to-back races at Pocono and Riverside, two of his favorite tracks. He raced only once more that year and in September resigned from the Hendricks team. His final days were dogged by continuing rumors. He attempted a comeback in 1988, but NASCAR banned him for alleged drug violations which he disputed until his dying day, Aug. 13, 1989. The cause of death was listed as AIDS, which he was said to have contracted from an unknown woman.
Motor racing at the time was only a niche sport and Richmond was nowhere near to being as famous as Tiger Woods. But his story might well serve as a cautionary tale. While Tiger is trying to sort out his life and his game, and fans wonder whether it's his driving or his putting that that has led to his startling collapse, the answer is obvious. It's the rut iron, as writer Dan Jenkins so succinctly described it. The driving and the putting can be fixed, although it won't be at this week's PGA championship, the last of this year's four majors. For once the venue, Whistling Straits, seems to have Woods overmatched, considering its length and devilish contours and the state of his game. What will be harder to fix will be the damage Woods has done himself with the rut iron. Perhaps he should just keep it in his bag.
Before pronouncing the last rites over Tiger Woods' career, it might be well to make sure that the deceased is really dead. Although we are all aware that Woods shot a career worst 18 over par in last week-end's Bridgestone Invitational, very few of us actually witnessed the ghastly event. So wretchedly did Woods perform that by the week-end, when the majority of viewers are free to watch golf on television, Tiger was relegated to the dawn patrol, seen only in sound bites, having started--and finished--his rounds before the live cameras were turned on. Perhaps it's just as well. Even those who can no longer abide the sight of the once universally admired golfer would not have enjoyed watching his self-immolation. My first thought was of the last words of Edward G. Robinson's character in the movie "Little Caesar." A depression era gangster modelled on Al Capone, the mortally wounded Rico Bandello, chillingly portrayed by Robinson, gasps: "Can this be the end of Rico?
Can this be the end of Tiger? Probably not. Can this be the end of the Tiger Woods who has dominated golf almost from the day he earned his pro tour card? Much more likely. Woods' fall from the pinnacle of his profession to the depths of golfing hell is shocking and unprecedented. I've tried to think of another athlete in any sport who has fallen so far and so fast. I can't. First of all, few athletes have ever risen to the heights that Woods attained. Sure, baseball has had its Steve Blass, a world series hero one year, a has-been pitcher the next, unable to throw the ball over the plate if his livelihood depended on it. Which it did. The Chicago Cubs even now are wondering what happened to Carlos Zambrano, a double digit winner for six consecutive seasons who started going south almost the very minute he signed a mega-million dollar contract.
Likewise the Detroit Tigers, who acquired Dontrelle Willis in a trade three years after the crowd pleasing lefty had won 22 games for the Florida Marlins. The Tigers shuttled the increasingly ineffective pitcher back and forth to the minors for two years before finally shuffling him off to Arizona. Fortunately for Detroit General Manager Dave Dombrowski's sanity the trade with the Marlins also brought them Miguel Cabrera, one of the game's elite hitters. Probably an even better example is another Detroit pitcher from an earlier era, Mark Fidrych, who captivated baseball fans in his rookie year when he went 19-9 with 24 complete games and did it with panache. He won only 10 games over the next four seasons and was out of baseball at the age of 26. But none of those pitchers was even close to being the dominant performer that Woods has been.
The closest I can come to finding a precedent for Tiger's situation is race car driver Tim Richmond, who burst onto the scene in 1980 as rookie of the year in Indianapolis and two months later embarked on a NASCAR career that would see him win 13 races in a six-year span. The last two years of his life would be shrouded in mystery and controversy. He died in 1989 at the age of 34, having lived the life advocated by Nick Romano, the hero of Willard Motley's novel "Knock on Any Door," whose mantra was: Live fast, die young, and have a good looking corpse. I covered the 1980 Indy 500 for the Chicago Tribune and although I knew him for only three weeks, Richmond became one of my favorite drivers. He was the talk of the Speedway in the week leading up to qualifying, but on pole day he crashed during the morning practice. That cost him any shot at the pole, but he qualified with relative ease and was racy enough on race day to earn Rookie of the Year honors. He led one lap, finished ninth and ran out of fuel with three laps to go. The last I ever saw of him he was hitching a ride back to the pits on race winner Johnny Rutherford's front wing. The crowd loved it. A few months later, Richmond switched to NASCAR and I switched to baseball, but I followed his progress as best I could. He mostly was spinning his wheels for the first five years, but in 1986 came a switch to the Rick Hendricks team and a breakthrough year. He won seven races that year and finished third in the point standings. But he missed the Daytona 500 at the start of the 1987 season and already the rumors were starting. He was on drugs. He had AIDS. The official reason for his absence was described as double pneumonia. He came back later in the year to win back-to-back races at Pocono and Riverside, two of his favorite tracks. He raced only once more that year and in September resigned from the Hendricks team. His final days were dogged by continuing rumors. He attempted a comeback in 1988, but NASCAR banned him for alleged drug violations which he disputed until his dying day, Aug. 13, 1989. The cause of death was listed as AIDS, which he was said to have contracted from an unknown woman.
Motor racing at the time was only a niche sport and Richmond was nowhere near to being as famous as Tiger Woods. But his story might well serve as a cautionary tale. While Tiger is trying to sort out his life and his game, and fans wonder whether it's his driving or his putting that that has led to his startling collapse, the answer is obvious. It's the rut iron, as writer Dan Jenkins so succinctly described it. The driving and the putting can be fixed, although it won't be at this week's PGA championship, the last of this year's four majors. For once the venue, Whistling Straits, seems to have Woods overmatched, considering its length and devilish contours and the state of his game. What will be harder to fix will be the damage Woods has done himself with the rut iron. Perhaps he should just keep it in his bag.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
By Bob Markus
"There was a guy from The Chicago Tribune who. . . ." Before Dean Smith could finish the sentence, the first he had ever spoken to me, I jumped in and confessed, "Yeah that was me." I had gone to Chapel Hill in the late spring of 1976 to do a story on the U.S. Olympic basketball team, which had assembled at the University of North Carolina to begin working out for the Montreal Games coming up that summer. Smith was going to coach the team, which he himself had hand picked. In constructing his roster the Tar Heels coach had leaned rather heavily on Atlantic Coast conference players. Too heavily, I thought. This was a critical year in U.S. Olympic basketball history. The 1972 team had suffered a stunning upset loss to Russia in the Gold Medal game in Munich and Smith was charged with assembling and coaching a team that would restore the United States to its rightful place at the top of the world. Most Americans felt that the Gold Medal had been stolen by the Russians, not earned. After all, an amazing string of foul-ups by the officials had given the Russians three chances to score the winning basket after time had seemingly expired. We wuz robbed, was the consensus opinion. But I had covered the game and the reality was that the U.S. had trailed throughout and took its only lead of the game when Doug Collins nailed two free throws with a few seconds remaining. We might have been robbed, but what were we doing in that neighborhood in the first place?
I put the blame on Coach Hank Iba, whose slow tempo style of play turned a bunch of thorobreds into a collection of dray horses. Now it was up to Smith to make things right again and, looking at the roster he'd assembled, I wasn't optimistic that he could do it. When I approached him in his office I was prepared for a tongue lashing or at least a verbal shot or two, but Smith couldn't have been nicer. He explained to me why he had made certain choices and, as it turned out, they were the right choices. Although this was the first time I had met Smith I'd been aware of him for years. He had played, as a reserve, on the Kansas team that won the NCAA tournament in 1952 and was on the squad I saw play at Missouri my first year in journalism school, 1953. The Jayhawks reached the NCAA finals again that year, but lost to Indiana by a point.
Smith was already a well-known coach by the time I really got to know him. By that time I was no longer writing a column but was The Tribune's national writer for college football and basketball. I had approached him about doing an in depth interview, but he said he didn't want the spotlight on himself. I told him it would be a story about the team and he agreed to meet me in his hotel room before a game at Clemson. I don't recall any of the conversation, but I do recall that it was a good interview. After that, whenever we ran into each other, Smith would call me by name and we'd exchange pleasantries. That's why I was saddened to read last week that Smith has suffered such severe memory loss that he cannot remember the names of some of his players and most certainly would not recall mine.
"There was a guy from the Chicago Tribune who. . . . . " "Yeah, that was me." When you write about sports for 35 years there are going to be times when you'll ruffle some feathers. I was not known as a "ripper," but nonetheless there were more than a few times when I had to steel myself for a confrontation with a player or coach I had criticized. Usually, the converstion would start out just as I have written here. I would introduce myself as Bob Markus from the Chicago Tribune and . . . ."there was a guy from the Chicago Tribune who wrote that golfers are not athletes," said Arnold Palmer when we had lunch together a few months after I had written just that, on the occasion of Palmer's being named Athlete of the Decade. "Yeah," I replied, "that was me." "Aw, that's all right," Arnie said before making a pretty good argument that golfers are athletes.
"There was a guy from the Chicago Tribune who. . . ." said Billy Martin and, "yeah that was me," I replied. Martin then went off on a 10-minute tirade about the column I had written about his role in a brawl after a bat throwing incident in the 1972 American League Championship season. Martin was managing the Detroit Tigers at the time and his pitcher had just plunked Oakland's Bert Campaneris in the ankle in response to Campy's multihit, two-steal performance. Campaneris had responded by throwing his bat at LaGrow, who fortunately ducked it and then the proverbial all hell broke loose. In the aftermath Martin demanded that Campaneris be banned for life and I felt compelled to remind him that he himself had once charged the mound and thrown a punch at a Chicago Cubs' pitcher, who, unlike LaGrow, did not duck and suffered a fractured cheek bone. In spring training of 1973 I was visiting the Tigers camp in Lakeland when Joe Falls, an iconic columnist in Detroit, approached with a twinkle in his eye and asked sweetly, "Have you ever met Billy Martin?" "No," I said. "I'll introduce you." After Martin finally ran out of verbal steam, he patiently answered all my questions and we never had another problem.
"There was a guy from The Chicago Tribune who. . . . "said Don Shula and "Yeah, that was me," I admitted. Shula was referring to a question I had asked at the previous year's Super Bowl. I can't remember how the question was phrased but I recall it concerned Mercury Morris and the way Shula had handled him. Shula's famous jaw became even more pronounced than usual and he bawled me out in front of my peers for a few minutes before turning to other matters. Now, it was the opening day of the Miami Dolphins' training camp and I was there to cover the camp for the two weeks leading up to the Tribune-sponsored College All-Star Game. I had introduced myself to Shula in his room and he had said, "There was a guy. . . . ." I explained to him that the question actually was meant to produce a positive reaction and that I was sorry if he took it another way. That was the last time it was ever mentioned and we became friends. I eventually learned there was little reason to ask Shula any questions, particularly after a game. He was hands down the best postgame interview in football. You'd go into the locker room with a half dozen questions in mind and he'd answer every one of them in his opening statement and even cover a few points you hadn't even thought of.
"There was a guy from Chicago who. . . ."This was Alex Johnson talking, an angry looking Alex Johnson and he was referring to a column I'd written the previous fall after his California Angels teammates had stopped speaking to him and the team had suspended him. I pointed out that he needed help, not punishment. I wrote that he had "a devil inside him" and Johnson interpreted that to mean he was the devil. "Did you write that?" he demanded. Under the circumstances I didn't say "Yeah, that was me," but rationalized that I didn't think I had actually called him a devil, so I answered, "I'm not certain. When I get home I'll look it up and next time I see you I'll let you know." You do that," he said. The first time the Cleveland Indians, his new team, came to Chicago, I made out my will, kissed my wife and kids goodby and went to Comiskey Park. I entered the visiting clubhouse, which was only about half full and instantly spotted Johnson. I went over and began, "I'm Bob. . . . " "I know who you are you %&$. Get out of my face or I'll . . ." I did not wait to find out what . . .meant.
"There was a guy from The Chicago Tribune who. . . ." Before Dean Smith could finish the sentence, the first he had ever spoken to me, I jumped in and confessed, "Yeah that was me." I had gone to Chapel Hill in the late spring of 1976 to do a story on the U.S. Olympic basketball team, which had assembled at the University of North Carolina to begin working out for the Montreal Games coming up that summer. Smith was going to coach the team, which he himself had hand picked. In constructing his roster the Tar Heels coach had leaned rather heavily on Atlantic Coast conference players. Too heavily, I thought. This was a critical year in U.S. Olympic basketball history. The 1972 team had suffered a stunning upset loss to Russia in the Gold Medal game in Munich and Smith was charged with assembling and coaching a team that would restore the United States to its rightful place at the top of the world. Most Americans felt that the Gold Medal had been stolen by the Russians, not earned. After all, an amazing string of foul-ups by the officials had given the Russians three chances to score the winning basket after time had seemingly expired. We wuz robbed, was the consensus opinion. But I had covered the game and the reality was that the U.S. had trailed throughout and took its only lead of the game when Doug Collins nailed two free throws with a few seconds remaining. We might have been robbed, but what were we doing in that neighborhood in the first place?
I put the blame on Coach Hank Iba, whose slow tempo style of play turned a bunch of thorobreds into a collection of dray horses. Now it was up to Smith to make things right again and, looking at the roster he'd assembled, I wasn't optimistic that he could do it. When I approached him in his office I was prepared for a tongue lashing or at least a verbal shot or two, but Smith couldn't have been nicer. He explained to me why he had made certain choices and, as it turned out, they were the right choices. Although this was the first time I had met Smith I'd been aware of him for years. He had played, as a reserve, on the Kansas team that won the NCAA tournament in 1952 and was on the squad I saw play at Missouri my first year in journalism school, 1953. The Jayhawks reached the NCAA finals again that year, but lost to Indiana by a point.
Smith was already a well-known coach by the time I really got to know him. By that time I was no longer writing a column but was The Tribune's national writer for college football and basketball. I had approached him about doing an in depth interview, but he said he didn't want the spotlight on himself. I told him it would be a story about the team and he agreed to meet me in his hotel room before a game at Clemson. I don't recall any of the conversation, but I do recall that it was a good interview. After that, whenever we ran into each other, Smith would call me by name and we'd exchange pleasantries. That's why I was saddened to read last week that Smith has suffered such severe memory loss that he cannot remember the names of some of his players and most certainly would not recall mine.
"There was a guy from the Chicago Tribune who. . . . . " "Yeah, that was me." When you write about sports for 35 years there are going to be times when you'll ruffle some feathers. I was not known as a "ripper," but nonetheless there were more than a few times when I had to steel myself for a confrontation with a player or coach I had criticized. Usually, the converstion would start out just as I have written here. I would introduce myself as Bob Markus from the Chicago Tribune and . . . ."there was a guy from the Chicago Tribune who wrote that golfers are not athletes," said Arnold Palmer when we had lunch together a few months after I had written just that, on the occasion of Palmer's being named Athlete of the Decade. "Yeah," I replied, "that was me." "Aw, that's all right," Arnie said before making a pretty good argument that golfers are athletes.
"There was a guy from the Chicago Tribune who. . . ." said Billy Martin and, "yeah that was me," I replied. Martin then went off on a 10-minute tirade about the column I had written about his role in a brawl after a bat throwing incident in the 1972 American League Championship season. Martin was managing the Detroit Tigers at the time and his pitcher had just plunked Oakland's Bert Campaneris in the ankle in response to Campy's multihit, two-steal performance. Campaneris had responded by throwing his bat at LaGrow, who fortunately ducked it and then the proverbial all hell broke loose. In the aftermath Martin demanded that Campaneris be banned for life and I felt compelled to remind him that he himself had once charged the mound and thrown a punch at a Chicago Cubs' pitcher, who, unlike LaGrow, did not duck and suffered a fractured cheek bone. In spring training of 1973 I was visiting the Tigers camp in Lakeland when Joe Falls, an iconic columnist in Detroit, approached with a twinkle in his eye and asked sweetly, "Have you ever met Billy Martin?" "No," I said. "I'll introduce you." After Martin finally ran out of verbal steam, he patiently answered all my questions and we never had another problem.
"There was a guy from The Chicago Tribune who. . . . "said Don Shula and "Yeah, that was me," I admitted. Shula was referring to a question I had asked at the previous year's Super Bowl. I can't remember how the question was phrased but I recall it concerned Mercury Morris and the way Shula had handled him. Shula's famous jaw became even more pronounced than usual and he bawled me out in front of my peers for a few minutes before turning to other matters. Now, it was the opening day of the Miami Dolphins' training camp and I was there to cover the camp for the two weeks leading up to the Tribune-sponsored College All-Star Game. I had introduced myself to Shula in his room and he had said, "There was a guy. . . . ." I explained to him that the question actually was meant to produce a positive reaction and that I was sorry if he took it another way. That was the last time it was ever mentioned and we became friends. I eventually learned there was little reason to ask Shula any questions, particularly after a game. He was hands down the best postgame interview in football. You'd go into the locker room with a half dozen questions in mind and he'd answer every one of them in his opening statement and even cover a few points you hadn't even thought of.
"There was a guy from Chicago who. . . ."This was Alex Johnson talking, an angry looking Alex Johnson and he was referring to a column I'd written the previous fall after his California Angels teammates had stopped speaking to him and the team had suspended him. I pointed out that he needed help, not punishment. I wrote that he had "a devil inside him" and Johnson interpreted that to mean he was the devil. "Did you write that?" he demanded. Under the circumstances I didn't say "Yeah, that was me," but rationalized that I didn't think I had actually called him a devil, so I answered, "I'm not certain. When I get home I'll look it up and next time I see you I'll let you know." You do that," he said. The first time the Cleveland Indians, his new team, came to Chicago, I made out my will, kissed my wife and kids goodby and went to Comiskey Park. I entered the visiting clubhouse, which was only about half full and instantly spotted Johnson. I went over and began, "I'm Bob. . . . " "I know who you are you %&$. Get out of my face or I'll . . ." I did not wait to find out what . . .meant.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
By Bob Markus
I think I understand now. I think I know what they mean when they speak of six degrees of separation. They mean that if you take two people, any two people, you can link them together through a chain of association comprising no more than six links. For example: I know Tony LaRussa through covering the White Sox when he was their manager. Tony is good friends with rocker Brian Wilson, leader of the Beach Boys. Wilson undoubtedly has played before someone who knows someone who knows someone who has bought milk from a goat herder in Afghanistan. Therefore there is a link between me and said goatherd, although I've never been to Afghanistan and most certainly never will.
In the past week there have been four men in the news who are separated from me by far fewer than six degrees. It's even easier to connect the dots among the four of them. Don Coryell. Dan Gilbert. Bob Sheppard. George Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner, who was The Boss when Bruce Springsteen had only gotten as far as D Street, died this morning, just a few days after Sheppard, the elegant voice of the Yankees for more than a half century, passed away at the age of 99. Coryell, whom I knew as coach of the St. Louis football Cardinals long before he brought Air Coryell to the San Diego Chargers, died last week. Gilbert, the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, is still with us, but may have committed professional suicide with his impassioned diatribe against the "disloyal" Lebron James. The letter played well in Cleveland, but it might not play so well among future free agent prospects or in a court of law should James decide to sue over allegations he laid down against the Boston Celtics in the NBA playoffs. It's unlikely James will go to court, but Gilbert's wallet is already $100,000 lighter, courtesy of NBA Commissioner David Stern.
Steinbrenner is the most obvious link to the other three. He may or may not have known Gilbert, but they had this in common: Steinbrenner once owned a professional basketball team in Cleveland. Unlike Gilbert's Cavaliers, Steinbrenner's Cleveland Pipers won the ABL championship in their lone season in the league before it folded. Tellingly, the Pipers changed coaches in midseason, although John McClendon was not fired, but resigned. Bill Sharman ended up coaching the team for the rest of that championship season. Steinbrenner grew up in Cleveland, earned his first million in Cleveland, and tried to buy the Indians before ending up purchasing the Yankees for a reported $10 million in 1973. The franchise is said to be worth $1 billion today. Steinbrenner was known as a demanding owner, who fired managers and general managers more often than Reggie Jackson uses the first person singular when discussing great players. In his first 23 years, The Boss hired and fired 20 managers, including Billy Martin five times. In 1981 he replaced Gene Michaels with Bob Lemon and won the American league pennant. The next year the Yankees got off to a bad start and Steinbrenner canned Lemon--and brought back Michaels.
I covered the '81 world series and have two memories of it. Most vivid was Goose Gossage drilling Dodgers' third baseman Ron Cey on the helmet and Cey living to tell about it. The second was sitting in front of Steinbrenner in the press box and listening to the Yankees owner berating right fielder Dave Winfield, whom he had signed to a then-record 10-year $23 million contract. Winfield went 1-for-22 in his first world series, eventually causing Steinbrenner to complain: "We need a Mr. October. Winfield is Mr. May." Nor did relations between the two get any better. Winfield eventually sued Steinbrenner for breach of contract and The Boss responded by paying a petty crook $40,000 to "dig up some dirt" on the outfielder. That earned Steinbrenner a "lifetime" suspension, which was later rescinded. It was the second time the Yankees owner had been suspended, the first coming after he pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign.
Managers and GMs were not the only ones to feel the boss's wrath when things went wrong. Only a handful of employees stayed the whole course with the demanding Steinbrenner. One of them, of course, was Sheppard, he of the cultivated voice who added a touch of class to the Yankee Stadium scene. His classic call: Now batting for the Yankees, number 2, the shortstop, Derek Jeter. Number 2. Jeter was so taken with the presentation that he asked to have it recorded and used whenever he comes to bat.
Steinbrenner's relationship to Coryell is a little more tenuous, but only a little. Steinbrenner spent three seasons as an assistant football coach in the Big 10 before going back to Cleveland to take over the family business, which was shipbuilding. He was a graduate assistant under Woody Hayes at Ohio State, coached alongside B0 Schembechler as an assistant at Northwestern under Lou Saban, and was an assistant in Jack Mollenkopf's first year at Purdue. He may not have known Coryell, but he most certainly knew some people who knew Coryell. I don't remember much about Coryell as coach of the Cardinals, but I do recall that he picked Jim Hart to be the quarterback and I was pretty tight with Hart, having interviewed him in his rookie year when he was a complete unknown. I covered quite a few Cardinals games in those years and they generally put on a good show. Covering the Cardinals in December or January was always a challenge because Busch stadium had an open air press box. This was partly due to Joe Pollack, the Cards' p.r. man who went around in shirt sleeves on the coldest days. I finally learned how to avoid frozen fingers. I would book a room in the Marriott across the street, watch the game on television and beat my feet to the locker room when the game ended. It worked. Pollack was a good friend, having been my sports editor on the Columbia Missourian when I was at the University of Missouri. My beat was Missouri football and Joe and I would travel to road games in his car. I recall a trip to Nebraska where we stopped off to see an old Indian scout who had been recommended by one of my professors. The scout was acquainted with Black Elk, a storied chief and, who knows, somewhere down the road was an intersection with Sitting Bull and therefore Gen. George Armstrong Custer and you can take that as far as you care to, take it to Appomattix and Robert E. Lee or take it to Washington and Abe Lincoln. Six degrees of separation. Get it?
I think I understand now. I think I know what they mean when they speak of six degrees of separation. They mean that if you take two people, any two people, you can link them together through a chain of association comprising no more than six links. For example: I know Tony LaRussa through covering the White Sox when he was their manager. Tony is good friends with rocker Brian Wilson, leader of the Beach Boys. Wilson undoubtedly has played before someone who knows someone who knows someone who has bought milk from a goat herder in Afghanistan. Therefore there is a link between me and said goatherd, although I've never been to Afghanistan and most certainly never will.
In the past week there have been four men in the news who are separated from me by far fewer than six degrees. It's even easier to connect the dots among the four of them. Don Coryell. Dan Gilbert. Bob Sheppard. George Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner, who was The Boss when Bruce Springsteen had only gotten as far as D Street, died this morning, just a few days after Sheppard, the elegant voice of the Yankees for more than a half century, passed away at the age of 99. Coryell, whom I knew as coach of the St. Louis football Cardinals long before he brought Air Coryell to the San Diego Chargers, died last week. Gilbert, the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, is still with us, but may have committed professional suicide with his impassioned diatribe against the "disloyal" Lebron James. The letter played well in Cleveland, but it might not play so well among future free agent prospects or in a court of law should James decide to sue over allegations he laid down against the Boston Celtics in the NBA playoffs. It's unlikely James will go to court, but Gilbert's wallet is already $100,000 lighter, courtesy of NBA Commissioner David Stern.
Steinbrenner is the most obvious link to the other three. He may or may not have known Gilbert, but they had this in common: Steinbrenner once owned a professional basketball team in Cleveland. Unlike Gilbert's Cavaliers, Steinbrenner's Cleveland Pipers won the ABL championship in their lone season in the league before it folded. Tellingly, the Pipers changed coaches in midseason, although John McClendon was not fired, but resigned. Bill Sharman ended up coaching the team for the rest of that championship season. Steinbrenner grew up in Cleveland, earned his first million in Cleveland, and tried to buy the Indians before ending up purchasing the Yankees for a reported $10 million in 1973. The franchise is said to be worth $1 billion today. Steinbrenner was known as a demanding owner, who fired managers and general managers more often than Reggie Jackson uses the first person singular when discussing great players. In his first 23 years, The Boss hired and fired 20 managers, including Billy Martin five times. In 1981 he replaced Gene Michaels with Bob Lemon and won the American league pennant. The next year the Yankees got off to a bad start and Steinbrenner canned Lemon--and brought back Michaels.
I covered the '81 world series and have two memories of it. Most vivid was Goose Gossage drilling Dodgers' third baseman Ron Cey on the helmet and Cey living to tell about it. The second was sitting in front of Steinbrenner in the press box and listening to the Yankees owner berating right fielder Dave Winfield, whom he had signed to a then-record 10-year $23 million contract. Winfield went 1-for-22 in his first world series, eventually causing Steinbrenner to complain: "We need a Mr. October. Winfield is Mr. May." Nor did relations between the two get any better. Winfield eventually sued Steinbrenner for breach of contract and The Boss responded by paying a petty crook $40,000 to "dig up some dirt" on the outfielder. That earned Steinbrenner a "lifetime" suspension, which was later rescinded. It was the second time the Yankees owner had been suspended, the first coming after he pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign.
Managers and GMs were not the only ones to feel the boss's wrath when things went wrong. Only a handful of employees stayed the whole course with the demanding Steinbrenner. One of them, of course, was Sheppard, he of the cultivated voice who added a touch of class to the Yankee Stadium scene. His classic call: Now batting for the Yankees, number 2, the shortstop, Derek Jeter. Number 2. Jeter was so taken with the presentation that he asked to have it recorded and used whenever he comes to bat.
Steinbrenner's relationship to Coryell is a little more tenuous, but only a little. Steinbrenner spent three seasons as an assistant football coach in the Big 10 before going back to Cleveland to take over the family business, which was shipbuilding. He was a graduate assistant under Woody Hayes at Ohio State, coached alongside B0 Schembechler as an assistant at Northwestern under Lou Saban, and was an assistant in Jack Mollenkopf's first year at Purdue. He may not have known Coryell, but he most certainly knew some people who knew Coryell. I don't remember much about Coryell as coach of the Cardinals, but I do recall that he picked Jim Hart to be the quarterback and I was pretty tight with Hart, having interviewed him in his rookie year when he was a complete unknown. I covered quite a few Cardinals games in those years and they generally put on a good show. Covering the Cardinals in December or January was always a challenge because Busch stadium had an open air press box. This was partly due to Joe Pollack, the Cards' p.r. man who went around in shirt sleeves on the coldest days. I finally learned how to avoid frozen fingers. I would book a room in the Marriott across the street, watch the game on television and beat my feet to the locker room when the game ended. It worked. Pollack was a good friend, having been my sports editor on the Columbia Missourian when I was at the University of Missouri. My beat was Missouri football and Joe and I would travel to road games in his car. I recall a trip to Nebraska where we stopped off to see an old Indian scout who had been recommended by one of my professors. The scout was acquainted with Black Elk, a storied chief and, who knows, somewhere down the road was an intersection with Sitting Bull and therefore Gen. George Armstrong Custer and you can take that as far as you care to, take it to Appomattix and Robert E. Lee or take it to Washington and Abe Lincoln. Six degrees of separation. Get it?
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
By Bob Markus
Eddie Stanky, when he managed the White Sox, had a favorite expression he used whenever an opposing pitcher threw a gem at his team. "He's another Walter Johnson," Stanky would say sarcastically. Is it only a coincidence that the newest "another Walter Johnson," pitches for Washington, as did the original.? Stephen Strasburg, of course, cannot hope to duplicate the record of The Big Train, who won 417 games for the Washington Senators in a 21-year career. He pitches in a different era, where pitch counts rule and a complete game is as rare as a Nessy sighting in Scotland. Johnson completed 531 of his 666 starts for the Senators. Strasburg has started only five games in the majors (completing none)and already is being touted as an All-Star game performer. I'll admit I'm as impressed as anyone by what I've seen of Strasburg. His debut against the Pittsburgh Pirates was quite possibly the most eagerly anticipated in major league history. The result was stunning--no walks, 14 strikeouts and a big, fat W alongside Strasburg's name in the box score.
But as a one-time Cubs fan I can't help remembering the excitement caused by Mark Prior's first major league start under circumstances amazingly similar to Strasburg's. Prior, too, had received a then-record bonus for signing with the Cubs as the over-all No. 2 draft choice out of USC. That he wasn't, like Strasburg, the No. 1 selection was largely due to the fact that the Minnesota Twins, with the first pick, felt obligated to take hometown prospect Joe Mauer, a decision that proved to be justified when Mauer became a batting champion and MVP for the Twins. Like Strasburg, Prior's first big league appearance was a much-hyped start against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and, like Strasburg, Prior proved to be the real deal. He struck out 10 in his six innings and got the win. When he dominated National League hitters the next season and led the Cubs to within five outs of their first world series berth since 1945, there wasn't a Cubs' fan in Chicago who would have traded Prior for Mauer or any other big league player. Then came the infamous Bartman affair in which a fan named Steve Bartman caught a foul fly that Cubs' outfielder Moises Alou swears was headed for his glove. I've never believed that to be true. The ball was not in the field of play and in my mind it was doubtful that Alou was going to reach far enough into the seats to make the catch. Had he done so, the Cubs would have led 3-0 with two outs and nobody on in the eighth and quite likely would have been celebrating a few minutes later. As it was, they unravelled completely and not only gave up eight runs in the inning, but got rolled over the next night with their other ace pitcher, Kerry Wood, on the mound.
Wood, too, was a can't miss phenom who, in his fifth start as a 20-year-old rookie, pitched what many consider the greatest game in baseball history. He gave up only an infield single while walking nobody and striking out 20 Houston Astros. After the blown chance in the league championship series, it was all downhill for both young pitchers. Injuries piled on injuries for both. Prior hasn't pitched a game in the majors since 2006 and only today came word that he was going to give it another try by putting his once-electric stuff on display for major league scouts in a session at Southern Cal. Wood is still pitching, but in a relief role, one in which he has had mixed success. The Cubs offered further proof that early success is no guarantee of future stardom just last week when they placed Carlos Zambrano on the restricted list after his meltdown in the dugout at White Sox Park. Zambrano was a dynamic pitcher for the Cubs until they rewarded him with a mega-million dollar contract and he rewarded them by going in the tank.
The Cubs, of course, aren't the only ones who've seen incipient super stars fire and fall back. The Detroit Tigers' Mark (the Bird) Fydrich was the talk of baseball when, as a rookie in 1976 he went 19-9 and enchanted fans everywhere with his exuberance. He was to last only four more years and win 10 more ball games in the majors. He died just this year in a freak farming accident. Then there's the largely unremembered story of Bobo Holloman, who, in his first major league start, threw a no-hitter for the St. Louis Browns. I remember it, because I was a student at the University of Missouri and heard the game on the radio in my dorm room. Holloman who apparently had mediocre stuff, had his at-'em ball working that night. It was the only complete game of his career and before the year was out he was in the minors, never to return.
But the poster child for caution when forecasting a brilliant pitching career undoubtedly is Herb Score. The flame-throwing left hander, whom Stanky most certainly would have called "another Lefty Grove" burst on the major league scene at 21 and for the first two years was, indeed, a potential Lefty Grove. In his first five games he recorded 50 strikeouts, a mark that still stands He led the American League in strikeouts both seasons while posting won-lost records of 16-10, and 20-9. Then came the day early in the Cleveland star's third year when the Yankees' Gil McDougland labelled a fastball "return to sender" and caved in Score's face . Score was never the same after that and eventually left the mound for the broadcast booth. There are few things in life more fragile than a pitcher's throwing arm, which is why when I was covering the White Sox, owner Jerry Reinsdorf would never give a pitcher a long term contract. So, appreciate Stephen Strasburg for what he is--a dynamic young pitcher with a world of talent and a seemingly unlimited future. But don't be calling him another Walter Johnson. There was only one Big Train. With his two big league victories, however sensationally they were achieved, Strasburg is still only a Little Caboose.
Eddie Stanky, when he managed the White Sox, had a favorite expression he used whenever an opposing pitcher threw a gem at his team. "He's another Walter Johnson," Stanky would say sarcastically. Is it only a coincidence that the newest "another Walter Johnson," pitches for Washington, as did the original.? Stephen Strasburg, of course, cannot hope to duplicate the record of The Big Train, who won 417 games for the Washington Senators in a 21-year career. He pitches in a different era, where pitch counts rule and a complete game is as rare as a Nessy sighting in Scotland. Johnson completed 531 of his 666 starts for the Senators. Strasburg has started only five games in the majors (completing none)and already is being touted as an All-Star game performer. I'll admit I'm as impressed as anyone by what I've seen of Strasburg. His debut against the Pittsburgh Pirates was quite possibly the most eagerly anticipated in major league history. The result was stunning--no walks, 14 strikeouts and a big, fat W alongside Strasburg's name in the box score.
But as a one-time Cubs fan I can't help remembering the excitement caused by Mark Prior's first major league start under circumstances amazingly similar to Strasburg's. Prior, too, had received a then-record bonus for signing with the Cubs as the over-all No. 2 draft choice out of USC. That he wasn't, like Strasburg, the No. 1 selection was largely due to the fact that the Minnesota Twins, with the first pick, felt obligated to take hometown prospect Joe Mauer, a decision that proved to be justified when Mauer became a batting champion and MVP for the Twins. Like Strasburg, Prior's first big league appearance was a much-hyped start against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and, like Strasburg, Prior proved to be the real deal. He struck out 10 in his six innings and got the win. When he dominated National League hitters the next season and led the Cubs to within five outs of their first world series berth since 1945, there wasn't a Cubs' fan in Chicago who would have traded Prior for Mauer or any other big league player. Then came the infamous Bartman affair in which a fan named Steve Bartman caught a foul fly that Cubs' outfielder Moises Alou swears was headed for his glove. I've never believed that to be true. The ball was not in the field of play and in my mind it was doubtful that Alou was going to reach far enough into the seats to make the catch. Had he done so, the Cubs would have led 3-0 with two outs and nobody on in the eighth and quite likely would have been celebrating a few minutes later. As it was, they unravelled completely and not only gave up eight runs in the inning, but got rolled over the next night with their other ace pitcher, Kerry Wood, on the mound.
Wood, too, was a can't miss phenom who, in his fifth start as a 20-year-old rookie, pitched what many consider the greatest game in baseball history. He gave up only an infield single while walking nobody and striking out 20 Houston Astros. After the blown chance in the league championship series, it was all downhill for both young pitchers. Injuries piled on injuries for both. Prior hasn't pitched a game in the majors since 2006 and only today came word that he was going to give it another try by putting his once-electric stuff on display for major league scouts in a session at Southern Cal. Wood is still pitching, but in a relief role, one in which he has had mixed success. The Cubs offered further proof that early success is no guarantee of future stardom just last week when they placed Carlos Zambrano on the restricted list after his meltdown in the dugout at White Sox Park. Zambrano was a dynamic pitcher for the Cubs until they rewarded him with a mega-million dollar contract and he rewarded them by going in the tank.
The Cubs, of course, aren't the only ones who've seen incipient super stars fire and fall back. The Detroit Tigers' Mark (the Bird) Fydrich was the talk of baseball when, as a rookie in 1976 he went 19-9 and enchanted fans everywhere with his exuberance. He was to last only four more years and win 10 more ball games in the majors. He died just this year in a freak farming accident. Then there's the largely unremembered story of Bobo Holloman, who, in his first major league start, threw a no-hitter for the St. Louis Browns. I remember it, because I was a student at the University of Missouri and heard the game on the radio in my dorm room. Holloman who apparently had mediocre stuff, had his at-'em ball working that night. It was the only complete game of his career and before the year was out he was in the minors, never to return.
But the poster child for caution when forecasting a brilliant pitching career undoubtedly is Herb Score. The flame-throwing left hander, whom Stanky most certainly would have called "another Lefty Grove" burst on the major league scene at 21 and for the first two years was, indeed, a potential Lefty Grove. In his first five games he recorded 50 strikeouts, a mark that still stands He led the American League in strikeouts both seasons while posting won-lost records of 16-10, and 20-9. Then came the day early in the Cleveland star's third year when the Yankees' Gil McDougland labelled a fastball "return to sender" and caved in Score's face . Score was never the same after that and eventually left the mound for the broadcast booth. There are few things in life more fragile than a pitcher's throwing arm, which is why when I was covering the White Sox, owner Jerry Reinsdorf would never give a pitcher a long term contract. So, appreciate Stephen Strasburg for what he is--a dynamic young pitcher with a world of talent and a seemingly unlimited future. But don't be calling him another Walter Johnson. There was only one Big Train. With his two big league victories, however sensationally they were achieved, Strasburg is still only a Little Caboose.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
By Bob Markus
Lets see if I've got this right. The Big 12 has 10 members. The Big 10 has 12 members. The Pac 10 has 11 members, but appears ready to make Utah the 12th member. Whose on first? I dunno. Third base! Perhaps Abbott and Costello could make some sense out of what's happening in college athletics. I sure can't. I graduated from a Big 12 school--Missouri. Only, then, it was the Big Seven. It wasn't until a half dozen years after I left school that it became the Big Eight, or, as pundits of the time called it, Oklahoma and the Seven Dwarfs.
It was about to be called "history" until Monday, when Texas came riding to the rescue, like the Lone Ranger protecting the Wells Fargo stage coach, and saved the payroll. Texas is one of the new kids on the Big 12 block, having led a mass exodus from the Southwest conference that changed the landscape of college football forever. Three other SWC schools joined Texas in the stampede, merging with the Big Eight to form the Big 12. The tradition rich Southwest conference, which had produced the likes of Sammy Baugh and Bobby Layne, Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams, was gone, vanished. Poof!
The same thing was about to happen to the Big 12. The Pac 10, spooked by rumblings from Big 10 country that the conference, already up to 11 members with the 1993 addition of Penn State, was planning to expand by as many as five schools, planned a massive preemptive strike of its own. The target of both conferences: The Big 12. The Pac 10 struck first, picking up Colorado, which boasts one of the prettiest--and most party prone--campuses in the country, but not much in the way of athletic heritage. The Big 10 then tossed out its bait in the direction of Nebraska and succeeded in reeling in the Cornhuskers, a longtime national force in football.
From a personal standpoint that shocked me. First of all, I had covered most of the Nebraska-Oklahoma shootouts of the early 1970s and regretted the fact I'd likely never see another one. But , more importantly, it left my alma mater in a potentially untenable position. Missouri had been rumored as one of the schools being considered by the Big 10. It definitely would not be one of the schools coveted by the Pac 10. Had Texas decided to put on its walking boots there would have been a domino effect, resulting in the demise of the Big 12 and Missouri would have been one of the schools looking through a window at the candy jar. The Pac 10 was poised to offer membership to four other Big 12 teams, including Oklahoma, and with Nebraska and Texas already gone, it's doubtful any of the four could or would refuse. With only six schools remaining, none of them a longterm football power, there would have been an-every-man-for-himself scramble to find a new home. Given their lack of universal appeal, the stranded six could not even go back to their original designation of The Big Six. Missouri's best option in that scenario would be to pair up with ancient rival Kansas in a package deal with either the Big 10 or Big East.
No matter what else happens I have a suggestion that I hope both conferences consider carefully. Swap names. Let the 10-school Big 12 be known as The Big 10 and the 12-team Big 10 as the Big 12. Seems reasonable to me. And it wouldn't even be breaking new ground. Back in the 1950s and 60s, there was a pair of auto racing brothers, Jim and Dick Rathmann, who enjoyed varying degrees of success. Dick made his mark in NASCAR, although he did run in nine Indianapolis 500s, once starting on the pole. Jim was the winner of the 1960 Indy 500, considered by many the greatest race ever run at the Brickyard, with Jim and Rodger Ward battling nose to tail for most of the 200 laps. One day, at a party in Indianapolis, I got to talking with one of the brothers. I think it was Dick. "You know," he told me, "I'm really Jim Rathmann. And Jim is Dick." It's true. Back at the beginning of their careers, Dick, four years younger than his brother, was too young to enter a race. So he switched names with Jim. It was only meant to be temporary, but somehow they never got around to switching back. So, now, if you talk to one of the Rathmann's you can't be sure just whom you're talking to. Hey, Abbott!
Dick Rathmann, by the way, was No.16 on my list of best drivers who never won the Indy 500. That's the list I was going to give you in the aftermath of this year's race, but didn't get around to it. So this is as good a time as any, and how do you like that segue? The top 10:
10--Alberto Ascari. The great Italian Formula One racer only ran at Indianapolis once and finished only 40 laps. But he is considered one of the all-time greats in motor racing. He was Mario Andretti's boyhood hero and inspiration. Mario virtually glowed while telling me of the time he stood in a roadside crowd and cheered each time Ascari came by.
9--Ralph Hepburn. Started as a motorcycle racing champion. Finished 2d in 1937, just 2.16 seconds behind Wilbur Shaw.
8--Jackie Stewart. Winner of three Formula one titles, he led his first of two Indy 500s with eight laps to go before retiring with a mechanical failure. He was voted Rookie of the Year over Graham Hill, who won the race.
7--Lloyd Ruby. Winner of seven champ car races, he had his best chance in 1969. He was leading the race until, on a pit stop, he pulled away too soon while the fuel hose nozzle was still attached, ripping a hole in his gas tank.
6--Tony Bettenhausen. Father of racers Gary, Merle, and Tony Jr., started 14 races with one second and two fourth place finishes. Was killed testing a car for a friend at Indianapolis in 1961.
5--Dan Gurney. An American road racing icon and car builder, he ran nine times at Indy. In his last three races he finished second, second, and third.
4--Eddie Sachs. Known as "the clown prince of auto racing," he won 8 champ car races and 2 Indy 500 poles. Finished second in 1961 and '62, died in first lap crash in 1964. Crash also took the life of rookie Dave MacDonald. Also involved: a couple of guys named Johnny Rutherford and B obby Unser.
3--Rex Mays. Finished second in 1940, 41', years in which he won the series championship. Has a race named after him at Milwaukee Mile.
2--Ted Horn. National champion in 1946, '47, '48, died in crash at DuQuoin, Il. in October of 1948. Had incredible nine-year string of top 4 finishes at Indianapolis.
1--Michael Andretti. Won 42 Indy Car races and one championship. Holds the record for most laps led without a win at Indy. Dropped out of race while leading on five different occasions.
Things I've let go by me while missing a week of blogging: Armando Galarraga loses perfect game on ump's blown call. In baseball parlance, a perfect game is often referred to as an El Perfecto. In this case, close, but no cigar.
Johnny Wooden dies at 99. I'm one of few writers who ever criticized Wooden, mainly because of his penchant for shielding stars Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton from the press. I felt it would have served both better to learn how to deal with media. I may have been wrong, since both turned out to be articulte and outspoken. I also changed my mind about Wooden after having breakfast with him one morning in the Dallas Cowboys' training camp in Thousand Oaks, Ca. He was delightful company.
Blackhawks win Stanley Cup. The Blackhawks were my final beat at the Chicago Tribune. Jeremy Roenick was the star and my go-to-guy. I wasn't surprised when he shed tears of joy after the clinching game. He always was an emotional guy and his greatest years came with the Hawks.
Some of you may have noticed I did not write a column last week. I'll probably go to an every-other-week schedule from now on. But if something strikes my fancy in the interim I'll probably give it a go. One of the advantages of writing for yourself is that you don't HAVE to publish every week.
Lets see if I've got this right. The Big 12 has 10 members. The Big 10 has 12 members. The Pac 10 has 11 members, but appears ready to make Utah the 12th member. Whose on first? I dunno. Third base! Perhaps Abbott and Costello could make some sense out of what's happening in college athletics. I sure can't. I graduated from a Big 12 school--Missouri. Only, then, it was the Big Seven. It wasn't until a half dozen years after I left school that it became the Big Eight, or, as pundits of the time called it, Oklahoma and the Seven Dwarfs.
It was about to be called "history" until Monday, when Texas came riding to the rescue, like the Lone Ranger protecting the Wells Fargo stage coach, and saved the payroll. Texas is one of the new kids on the Big 12 block, having led a mass exodus from the Southwest conference that changed the landscape of college football forever. Three other SWC schools joined Texas in the stampede, merging with the Big Eight to form the Big 12. The tradition rich Southwest conference, which had produced the likes of Sammy Baugh and Bobby Layne, Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams, was gone, vanished. Poof!
The same thing was about to happen to the Big 12. The Pac 10, spooked by rumblings from Big 10 country that the conference, already up to 11 members with the 1993 addition of Penn State, was planning to expand by as many as five schools, planned a massive preemptive strike of its own. The target of both conferences: The Big 12. The Pac 10 struck first, picking up Colorado, which boasts one of the prettiest--and most party prone--campuses in the country, but not much in the way of athletic heritage. The Big 10 then tossed out its bait in the direction of Nebraska and succeeded in reeling in the Cornhuskers, a longtime national force in football.
From a personal standpoint that shocked me. First of all, I had covered most of the Nebraska-Oklahoma shootouts of the early 1970s and regretted the fact I'd likely never see another one. But , more importantly, it left my alma mater in a potentially untenable position. Missouri had been rumored as one of the schools being considered by the Big 10. It definitely would not be one of the schools coveted by the Pac 10. Had Texas decided to put on its walking boots there would have been a domino effect, resulting in the demise of the Big 12 and Missouri would have been one of the schools looking through a window at the candy jar. The Pac 10 was poised to offer membership to four other Big 12 teams, including Oklahoma, and with Nebraska and Texas already gone, it's doubtful any of the four could or would refuse. With only six schools remaining, none of them a longterm football power, there would have been an-every-man-for-himself scramble to find a new home. Given their lack of universal appeal, the stranded six could not even go back to their original designation of The Big Six. Missouri's best option in that scenario would be to pair up with ancient rival Kansas in a package deal with either the Big 10 or Big East.
No matter what else happens I have a suggestion that I hope both conferences consider carefully. Swap names. Let the 10-school Big 12 be known as The Big 10 and the 12-team Big 10 as the Big 12. Seems reasonable to me. And it wouldn't even be breaking new ground. Back in the 1950s and 60s, there was a pair of auto racing brothers, Jim and Dick Rathmann, who enjoyed varying degrees of success. Dick made his mark in NASCAR, although he did run in nine Indianapolis 500s, once starting on the pole. Jim was the winner of the 1960 Indy 500, considered by many the greatest race ever run at the Brickyard, with Jim and Rodger Ward battling nose to tail for most of the 200 laps. One day, at a party in Indianapolis, I got to talking with one of the brothers. I think it was Dick. "You know," he told me, "I'm really Jim Rathmann. And Jim is Dick." It's true. Back at the beginning of their careers, Dick, four years younger than his brother, was too young to enter a race. So he switched names with Jim. It was only meant to be temporary, but somehow they never got around to switching back. So, now, if you talk to one of the Rathmann's you can't be sure just whom you're talking to. Hey, Abbott!
Dick Rathmann, by the way, was No.16 on my list of best drivers who never won the Indy 500. That's the list I was going to give you in the aftermath of this year's race, but didn't get around to it. So this is as good a time as any, and how do you like that segue? The top 10:
10--Alberto Ascari. The great Italian Formula One racer only ran at Indianapolis once and finished only 40 laps. But he is considered one of the all-time greats in motor racing. He was Mario Andretti's boyhood hero and inspiration. Mario virtually glowed while telling me of the time he stood in a roadside crowd and cheered each time Ascari came by.
9--Ralph Hepburn. Started as a motorcycle racing champion. Finished 2d in 1937, just 2.16 seconds behind Wilbur Shaw.
8--Jackie Stewart. Winner of three Formula one titles, he led his first of two Indy 500s with eight laps to go before retiring with a mechanical failure. He was voted Rookie of the Year over Graham Hill, who won the race.
7--Lloyd Ruby. Winner of seven champ car races, he had his best chance in 1969. He was leading the race until, on a pit stop, he pulled away too soon while the fuel hose nozzle was still attached, ripping a hole in his gas tank.
6--Tony Bettenhausen. Father of racers Gary, Merle, and Tony Jr., started 14 races with one second and two fourth place finishes. Was killed testing a car for a friend at Indianapolis in 1961.
5--Dan Gurney. An American road racing icon and car builder, he ran nine times at Indy. In his last three races he finished second, second, and third.
4--Eddie Sachs. Known as "the clown prince of auto racing," he won 8 champ car races and 2 Indy 500 poles. Finished second in 1961 and '62, died in first lap crash in 1964. Crash also took the life of rookie Dave MacDonald. Also involved: a couple of guys named Johnny Rutherford and B obby Unser.
3--Rex Mays. Finished second in 1940, 41', years in which he won the series championship. Has a race named after him at Milwaukee Mile.
2--Ted Horn. National champion in 1946, '47, '48, died in crash at DuQuoin, Il. in October of 1948. Had incredible nine-year string of top 4 finishes at Indianapolis.
1--Michael Andretti. Won 42 Indy Car races and one championship. Holds the record for most laps led without a win at Indy. Dropped out of race while leading on five different occasions.
Things I've let go by me while missing a week of blogging: Armando Galarraga loses perfect game on ump's blown call. In baseball parlance, a perfect game is often referred to as an El Perfecto. In this case, close, but no cigar.
Johnny Wooden dies at 99. I'm one of few writers who ever criticized Wooden, mainly because of his penchant for shielding stars Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton from the press. I felt it would have served both better to learn how to deal with media. I may have been wrong, since both turned out to be articulte and outspoken. I also changed my mind about Wooden after having breakfast with him one morning in the Dallas Cowboys' training camp in Thousand Oaks, Ca. He was delightful company.
Blackhawks win Stanley Cup. The Blackhawks were my final beat at the Chicago Tribune. Jeremy Roenick was the star and my go-to-guy. I wasn't surprised when he shed tears of joy after the clinching game. He always was an emotional guy and his greatest years came with the Hawks.
Some of you may have noticed I did not write a column last week. I'll probably go to an every-other-week schedule from now on. But if something strikes my fancy in the interim I'll probably give it a go. One of the advantages of writing for yourself is that you don't HAVE to publish every week.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
By Bob Markus
The Indianapolis 500 is my favorite sporting event of the year. It's the one day that I warn my wife a week in advance not to accept any social engagements. I covered 20 of them for The Chicago Tribune, including the 1988 race when I did double duty, working in Teo Fabi's pit crew and filing a story after the race. It was the most unforgettable day of my professional life. How many times in 36 years of covering sporting events did I stand for the National Anthem? A thousand? Two thousand? Three? And how many times did the singing of "The Star Spangled Banner" move me to tears? Just this once. Standing next to my team's race car just moments before the command to "start yer engines" I felt the tears begin to well up and I just let them go. The day didn't last long for our team. Just 30 laps into the race Fabi brought the Quaker State-Porsche into the pits for his first and, as it turned out, last stop. Using the long-handled stop sign assigned to me, I brought Teo to a tire-screeching halt, then picked up the fire hose with which I was supposed to wash down the fuel cell door after refueling. It was a scary moment for me because my target was located behind the driver's head and I had not been able to practice it. What if I squirted Teo instead of the fuel cell? I thought I had done the job properly, but when I turned my back to hang up the hose I heard cursing and I saw everyone's head turned to the left as in the tennis crowd shots in Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train." "What happened?" I asked. "Teo crashed," came the laconic response. For a tense irrational moment I thought it was my fault, that Fabi somehow had spun the tires in the water I had laid down. When I learned that Teo had been sent out before a rear tire could be secured and had crashed just a few hundred feet down pit lane when the wheel came off, I was relieved. When two or three of my pit crew mates began pushing the car toward gasoline alley I decided to join them and so there I was, a slightly overweight man in his 50s, running nearly a half mile under a broiling sun, wondering if I was crazy or just plain stupid.
Instead of reaping the thrill of victory I had been saddled with the agony of defeat, but what mattered most was that I had, in a small way, competed on the biggest stage in the sporting world. But I was besotted by the Indy 500 long before I ever dreamed I could play a part in it. I remember the first time I was really aware of the Indy 500 was Memorial day of 1946 when, sitting in the grand stand in Wrigley Field watching the Cubs play somebody, the P.A. announcer, Pat Pieper, came out with the news that George Robson had won the first Indianapolis 500 since the war started. After that I usually would listen to the race on the radio, never dreaming I would ever actually see a race, let alone participate in it. I was working as a reporter on The Moline (Il.) Dispatch on Memorial Day of 1955 and had gone to my room at the YMCA, which was virtually next door to the newspaper, where I heard on the radio that Bill Vukovich, winner of the two previous Indy 500s, had been killed while again leading the race. I hustled back to the office and told the city editor the news and they managed to get a few paragraphs on a page one replate. I'm not certain when the race was first televised, but I remember that in 1964 it was being shown in a local movie theater. My wife and I went to see it and that was the day that Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald were killed in a fiery wreck on the second lap. We didn't wait around for the restart almost two hours later. My only other contact with the Speedway was a telephone interview with Jim Clark from his garage in Gasoline Alley just a few days before the Scotsman won the 1965 race. So I really didn't know what to expect when I went to my first race in 1968. I fell in love with it. All of it. The Purdue band playing "On the Banks of the Wabash", Jim Nabors singing "Back Home in Indiana," "Gentlemen, start your engines," the balloons going up, the jets buzzing by and the incredible rush of adrenalin when those 33 cars scream into the first turn. I've had some bad days at the race track, none worse than in 1973 when Swede Savage, one of my favorite drivers, was fatally injured in a flaming wreck that pretty much summed up the entire month of rain and ruin. Yet, like General Patton's feelings about war, I do love it so. Still.
Obviously, it would take a lot to make me miss seeing the Indy 500. This year it almost happened. Instead of watching the start of the race from the comfort of my living room, I watched it from a hospital emergency room cubicle. Before I go any further let me assure you everyone's all right. But for a moment the Indy 500 didn't seem very important to me. My wife, who had opened a cut over her right eye brow in a fall on Saturday night, decided she'd made a mistake by refusing to go to the hospital and when she called her doctor Sunday morning, he agreed. So off we went to the emergency room where, ultimately, the doctor in charge ordered a cat scan--just in case. I waited in the room, with the TV set tuned to the race and, although I wasn't really into it, saw the start. After awhile I heard a nurse across the hall say, rather excitedly, "the patient in 37 has a cervical fracture." That pretty much went by me until I remembered, "this is room 37." When my wife was wheeled back into the room she wore a cervical collar and we both prepared to hear the worst. But a little while later the ER doctor came in and said, "You're fine. You can go home." It was nearly 3 o'clock and we hadn't had lunch, so we went to the McDonald's right in the hospital. I don't know what went on in the race during tht time, but we got it on the radio on the drive home. We had to leave the car for 10 minutes at the pharmacy, so there went another gap. But being the long-running event that it is, there was still plenty of racing to be seen when we got home. I wasn't thrilled with ABC's coverage--too much, side-by-side coverage which makes it hard to follow the action. I don't really know any of the drivers any more, but I do know all the owners. Roger Penske. Chip Ganassi. Michael Andretti. Those are the big three in Indy car racing. I like them all, but Michael is my favorite. I've known him since he was a rookie and I've known his dad Mario since he won the 1969 race. I remember a long one-on-one interview with Mario the morning after the race. He did not appear to be comfortable and he spoke with a decided accent. Since then Mario has become so fluent in English that whenever any one asks me who my favorite interview subject is, I truthfully answer: "Mario Andretti."
So I was hoping one of Michael's drivers would win the race, although they had all looked so bad in qualifying that it didn't seem likely. But both Tony Kanaan and Michael's son Marco put on enough of a charge to make it interesting at the end and even Danica Patrick stopped complaining long enough to motor to a respectable sixth place finish. Under the circumstances it was a good day for Michael's team. Ganassi had the race winner, Dario Franchitti, and Penske would win the World 600 in Charlotte that night, so everyone should have been happy. I know I was.
-0-
Note to my readers: I've always had a strange method of writing a column--or blog if you insist. I don't always know how a story is going to come out. That's why when I used to go into the sports editor's office and he'd ask me what I was going to write about, I'd have to say, "I don't know." Today's is an extreme example. I did three hours of research for a blog that I had intended to be about the ten greatest race drivers who never won the Indianapolis 500. But I never quite got rolling in that direction. So I'm thinking of doing it next week. Or next year. See you then.
The Indianapolis 500 is my favorite sporting event of the year. It's the one day that I warn my wife a week in advance not to accept any social engagements. I covered 20 of them for The Chicago Tribune, including the 1988 race when I did double duty, working in Teo Fabi's pit crew and filing a story after the race. It was the most unforgettable day of my professional life. How many times in 36 years of covering sporting events did I stand for the National Anthem? A thousand? Two thousand? Three? And how many times did the singing of "The Star Spangled Banner" move me to tears? Just this once. Standing next to my team's race car just moments before the command to "start yer engines" I felt the tears begin to well up and I just let them go. The day didn't last long for our team. Just 30 laps into the race Fabi brought the Quaker State-Porsche into the pits for his first and, as it turned out, last stop. Using the long-handled stop sign assigned to me, I brought Teo to a tire-screeching halt, then picked up the fire hose with which I was supposed to wash down the fuel cell door after refueling. It was a scary moment for me because my target was located behind the driver's head and I had not been able to practice it. What if I squirted Teo instead of the fuel cell? I thought I had done the job properly, but when I turned my back to hang up the hose I heard cursing and I saw everyone's head turned to the left as in the tennis crowd shots in Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train." "What happened?" I asked. "Teo crashed," came the laconic response. For a tense irrational moment I thought it was my fault, that Fabi somehow had spun the tires in the water I had laid down. When I learned that Teo had been sent out before a rear tire could be secured and had crashed just a few hundred feet down pit lane when the wheel came off, I was relieved. When two or three of my pit crew mates began pushing the car toward gasoline alley I decided to join them and so there I was, a slightly overweight man in his 50s, running nearly a half mile under a broiling sun, wondering if I was crazy or just plain stupid.
Instead of reaping the thrill of victory I had been saddled with the agony of defeat, but what mattered most was that I had, in a small way, competed on the biggest stage in the sporting world. But I was besotted by the Indy 500 long before I ever dreamed I could play a part in it. I remember the first time I was really aware of the Indy 500 was Memorial day of 1946 when, sitting in the grand stand in Wrigley Field watching the Cubs play somebody, the P.A. announcer, Pat Pieper, came out with the news that George Robson had won the first Indianapolis 500 since the war started. After that I usually would listen to the race on the radio, never dreaming I would ever actually see a race, let alone participate in it. I was working as a reporter on The Moline (Il.) Dispatch on Memorial Day of 1955 and had gone to my room at the YMCA, which was virtually next door to the newspaper, where I heard on the radio that Bill Vukovich, winner of the two previous Indy 500s, had been killed while again leading the race. I hustled back to the office and told the city editor the news and they managed to get a few paragraphs on a page one replate. I'm not certain when the race was first televised, but I remember that in 1964 it was being shown in a local movie theater. My wife and I went to see it and that was the day that Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald were killed in a fiery wreck on the second lap. We didn't wait around for the restart almost two hours later. My only other contact with the Speedway was a telephone interview with Jim Clark from his garage in Gasoline Alley just a few days before the Scotsman won the 1965 race. So I really didn't know what to expect when I went to my first race in 1968. I fell in love with it. All of it. The Purdue band playing "On the Banks of the Wabash", Jim Nabors singing "Back Home in Indiana," "Gentlemen, start your engines," the balloons going up, the jets buzzing by and the incredible rush of adrenalin when those 33 cars scream into the first turn. I've had some bad days at the race track, none worse than in 1973 when Swede Savage, one of my favorite drivers, was fatally injured in a flaming wreck that pretty much summed up the entire month of rain and ruin. Yet, like General Patton's feelings about war, I do love it so. Still.
Obviously, it would take a lot to make me miss seeing the Indy 500. This year it almost happened. Instead of watching the start of the race from the comfort of my living room, I watched it from a hospital emergency room cubicle. Before I go any further let me assure you everyone's all right. But for a moment the Indy 500 didn't seem very important to me. My wife, who had opened a cut over her right eye brow in a fall on Saturday night, decided she'd made a mistake by refusing to go to the hospital and when she called her doctor Sunday morning, he agreed. So off we went to the emergency room where, ultimately, the doctor in charge ordered a cat scan--just in case. I waited in the room, with the TV set tuned to the race and, although I wasn't really into it, saw the start. After awhile I heard a nurse across the hall say, rather excitedly, "the patient in 37 has a cervical fracture." That pretty much went by me until I remembered, "this is room 37." When my wife was wheeled back into the room she wore a cervical collar and we both prepared to hear the worst. But a little while later the ER doctor came in and said, "You're fine. You can go home." It was nearly 3 o'clock and we hadn't had lunch, so we went to the McDonald's right in the hospital. I don't know what went on in the race during tht time, but we got it on the radio on the drive home. We had to leave the car for 10 minutes at the pharmacy, so there went another gap. But being the long-running event that it is, there was still plenty of racing to be seen when we got home. I wasn't thrilled with ABC's coverage--too much, side-by-side coverage which makes it hard to follow the action. I don't really know any of the drivers any more, but I do know all the owners. Roger Penske. Chip Ganassi. Michael Andretti. Those are the big three in Indy car racing. I like them all, but Michael is my favorite. I've known him since he was a rookie and I've known his dad Mario since he won the 1969 race. I remember a long one-on-one interview with Mario the morning after the race. He did not appear to be comfortable and he spoke with a decided accent. Since then Mario has become so fluent in English that whenever any one asks me who my favorite interview subject is, I truthfully answer: "Mario Andretti."
So I was hoping one of Michael's drivers would win the race, although they had all looked so bad in qualifying that it didn't seem likely. But both Tony Kanaan and Michael's son Marco put on enough of a charge to make it interesting at the end and even Danica Patrick stopped complaining long enough to motor to a respectable sixth place finish. Under the circumstances it was a good day for Michael's team. Ganassi had the race winner, Dario Franchitti, and Penske would win the World 600 in Charlotte that night, so everyone should have been happy. I know I was.
-0-
Note to my readers: I've always had a strange method of writing a column--or blog if you insist. I don't always know how a story is going to come out. That's why when I used to go into the sports editor's office and he'd ask me what I was going to write about, I'd have to say, "I don't know." Today's is an extreme example. I did three hours of research for a blog that I had intended to be about the ten greatest race drivers who never won the Indianapolis 500. But I never quite got rolling in that direction. So I'm thinking of doing it next week. Or next year. See you then.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
By Bob Markus
There's no whining in auto racing. Danica Patrick learned that the hard way over the week-end when she was booed by fans on pole day for the Indianapolis 500 after qualifying poorly and blaming it on her race car. She undoubtedly was right. Her race car is a piece of junk. An enormously expensive piece of junk, but nevertheless. . . .junk.
It's all right for me to say that, but when a driver throws her team under the bus, it's bad form. Any one who knows anything at all about the sport knows that the driver is just one of the elements that comprise a great race team. Patrick was just one of five drivers who qualified for the Michael Andretti team and none of the five had a good day. In fact, it's been a bad year for the Andretti team, which only a few years ago was winning championships. Teammate Tony Kanaan, who wrecked two race cars before sneaking into the field in the final hour, gently rebuked Patrick, reminding her that these were the same mechanics who prepared the car with which she became the first woman to drive an Indy Car into Victory Lane two years ago. He advised her to lighten up and start having fun again.
It was not entirely out of character for Patrick to deflect blame for her poor showing. She has been involved in several on track incidents and to my knowledge has never taken the rap for any of them. When Patrick drove to victory in Japan, both Michael Andretti and I predicted it was the first of many. We may have been wrong, but it's too early to tell. My opinion had been formed a few years earlier when, in her first Indianapolis 500, Danica made a couple of absolutely brilliant moves and led the race going into the final laps. Appearing puzzled by the reaction to her comments Saturday, which were aired on the Speedway's public address system, Patrick observed, "they used to love me. I'm the same driver I was five years ago." Indeed, they did love her. Ever since she first came to the speedway, Patrick has been far and away the fans' favorite driver.
It is not in the nature of racing fans to boo a driver. The only other race driver I can think of who has been booed on the race track is NASCAR's Jeff Gordon. Gordon's sin was to be too good. The booing was mostly from fans of the late Dale Earnhardt, resentful of the fact that Gordon was about to pass their icon in career victories. The booing has pretty much gone away now that Gordon is struggling to keep up with his teammate, Jimmie Johnson.
Women drivers are no longer a novelty at the Indy 500. When I first started covering the race in 1968 women were not even allowed in Gasoline Alley, let alone in the seat of a race car. Janet Guthrie changed all that when she made the race for the first time in 1977. It was a monumental achievement. As I wrote at the time, it was not a Billie Jean King beating up on old man Bobby Riggs. It was more like Jacky Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. Like Robinson, Guthrie heard plenty of gender-based slurs and endured outright hostility from some of her male competitors. The pressure on Guthrie the day she qualified was enormous, although there was not the media attention she would face today. There were perhaps a couple of handsful of reporters interviewing her near the pit entrance after she completed her four-lap run. Later on, I had a one-on-one interview with her in her motor coach that went on for a good hour. That would be impossible in these times.
There have been other women drivers who paved the way for Danica Patrick at Indianapolis. Lyn St. James competed seven times and was Rookie of the Year in 1992 when she finished 11th. Sarah Fisher, who qualified for her 9th Indy 500, was almost as highly touted as Patrick when she made the race for the first time at the age of 19. She had a number of firsts--first woman to win an Indy Car pole, first to make a podium appearance for a third place finish in Kentucky, and first to finish as high as second. But, like Guthrie and St. James before her, Fisher had trouble attracting sponsorship money. That is something that has always mystified me. You'd think there would be plenty of companies that would see the benefit of having a high profile woman athlete as the company spokesman. Didn't happen. Not until Patrick came along and unleashed the power of sex appeal. That is where Danica has the edge. Like the women who came before her, Danica wants to be judged by her performance behind the wheel. Unlike the others, she doesn't mind being seen as a beautiful woman. Some of her spots for her Go Daddy sponsor are border line suggestive.
There were five women who attempted to qualify for Sunday's Indy 500 and four of them made it. Two of them, Ana Beatriz of Brazil and Swiss-born Simona de Silvestro qualified just ahead of Danica, while Fisher qualified 29th. Milka Duno of Venezuela, who made the field three times before, failed to qualify this time. None of the women drivers is likely to be competitive Sunday, although it is possible to come from the back of the pack to the front. In the 1980 race Tom Sneva went from 33d to second and Gary Bettenhausen from 32d to third. If anyone makes that kind of charge Sunday it is likely to be Kanaan, although his luck in the Indy 500 has not been the greatest. Sunday should be an interesting test for Patrick. She has shown what she can do with a good handling race car, but has yet to demonstrate that, like a Rick Mears for example, she can turn an ill-handling car into a winner over the course of 500 miles. If she can, she'll turn those boos back into cheers in a hurry.
There's no whining in auto racing. Danica Patrick learned that the hard way over the week-end when she was booed by fans on pole day for the Indianapolis 500 after qualifying poorly and blaming it on her race car. She undoubtedly was right. Her race car is a piece of junk. An enormously expensive piece of junk, but nevertheless. . . .junk.
It's all right for me to say that, but when a driver throws her team under the bus, it's bad form. Any one who knows anything at all about the sport knows that the driver is just one of the elements that comprise a great race team. Patrick was just one of five drivers who qualified for the Michael Andretti team and none of the five had a good day. In fact, it's been a bad year for the Andretti team, which only a few years ago was winning championships. Teammate Tony Kanaan, who wrecked two race cars before sneaking into the field in the final hour, gently rebuked Patrick, reminding her that these were the same mechanics who prepared the car with which she became the first woman to drive an Indy Car into Victory Lane two years ago. He advised her to lighten up and start having fun again.
It was not entirely out of character for Patrick to deflect blame for her poor showing. She has been involved in several on track incidents and to my knowledge has never taken the rap for any of them. When Patrick drove to victory in Japan, both Michael Andretti and I predicted it was the first of many. We may have been wrong, but it's too early to tell. My opinion had been formed a few years earlier when, in her first Indianapolis 500, Danica made a couple of absolutely brilliant moves and led the race going into the final laps. Appearing puzzled by the reaction to her comments Saturday, which were aired on the Speedway's public address system, Patrick observed, "they used to love me. I'm the same driver I was five years ago." Indeed, they did love her. Ever since she first came to the speedway, Patrick has been far and away the fans' favorite driver.
It is not in the nature of racing fans to boo a driver. The only other race driver I can think of who has been booed on the race track is NASCAR's Jeff Gordon. Gordon's sin was to be too good. The booing was mostly from fans of the late Dale Earnhardt, resentful of the fact that Gordon was about to pass their icon in career victories. The booing has pretty much gone away now that Gordon is struggling to keep up with his teammate, Jimmie Johnson.
Women drivers are no longer a novelty at the Indy 500. When I first started covering the race in 1968 women were not even allowed in Gasoline Alley, let alone in the seat of a race car. Janet Guthrie changed all that when she made the race for the first time in 1977. It was a monumental achievement. As I wrote at the time, it was not a Billie Jean King beating up on old man Bobby Riggs. It was more like Jacky Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball. Like Robinson, Guthrie heard plenty of gender-based slurs and endured outright hostility from some of her male competitors. The pressure on Guthrie the day she qualified was enormous, although there was not the media attention she would face today. There were perhaps a couple of handsful of reporters interviewing her near the pit entrance after she completed her four-lap run. Later on, I had a one-on-one interview with her in her motor coach that went on for a good hour. That would be impossible in these times.
There have been other women drivers who paved the way for Danica Patrick at Indianapolis. Lyn St. James competed seven times and was Rookie of the Year in 1992 when she finished 11th. Sarah Fisher, who qualified for her 9th Indy 500, was almost as highly touted as Patrick when she made the race for the first time at the age of 19. She had a number of firsts--first woman to win an Indy Car pole, first to make a podium appearance for a third place finish in Kentucky, and first to finish as high as second. But, like Guthrie and St. James before her, Fisher had trouble attracting sponsorship money. That is something that has always mystified me. You'd think there would be plenty of companies that would see the benefit of having a high profile woman athlete as the company spokesman. Didn't happen. Not until Patrick came along and unleashed the power of sex appeal. That is where Danica has the edge. Like the women who came before her, Danica wants to be judged by her performance behind the wheel. Unlike the others, she doesn't mind being seen as a beautiful woman. Some of her spots for her Go Daddy sponsor are border line suggestive.
There were five women who attempted to qualify for Sunday's Indy 500 and four of them made it. Two of them, Ana Beatriz of Brazil and Swiss-born Simona de Silvestro qualified just ahead of Danica, while Fisher qualified 29th. Milka Duno of Venezuela, who made the field three times before, failed to qualify this time. None of the women drivers is likely to be competitive Sunday, although it is possible to come from the back of the pack to the front. In the 1980 race Tom Sneva went from 33d to second and Gary Bettenhausen from 32d to third. If anyone makes that kind of charge Sunday it is likely to be Kanaan, although his luck in the Indy 500 has not been the greatest. Sunday should be an interesting test for Patrick. She has shown what she can do with a good handling race car, but has yet to demonstrate that, like a Rick Mears for example, she can turn an ill-handling car into a winner over the course of 500 miles. If she can, she'll turn those boos back into cheers in a hurry.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
By Bob Markus
Dale Tallon has done just about everything a man can do if he's a hockey lifer--except sip from the Stanley Cup. Now, just as the Chicago Blackhawks, the team he served for 36 years, are likely going to sip the wine, Tallon has gone to the last place you'd expect to find hockey's holy grail. Heck, the Florida Panthers not only have never won the Stanley Cup, they haven't even made the playoffs for nine years. Of course, there's many a slip between the Cup and the lip, and the Blackhawks were still seven wins away going into Tuesday night's Western Conference Final Series game in Vancouver. But they already have seized home ice advantage for the remainder of the playoffs. This is a team that, when Tallon took over as general manager four years ago, had missed the playoffs for six of the seven preceding seasons.
The Blackhawks were my beat for the final two of my 36 years writing sports for the Chicago Tribune. At the time, they still routinely filled the United Center for every home game and had done so for many years. But it also had been 35 years since the Hawks won the Stanley Cup and another 13 seasons have slipped by since then. Now, thanks to Tallon's coup of drafting Jonathon Toews and Patrick Kane in successive years, trading for Patrick Sharp and Kris Versteeg, and signing free agent Marian Hossa, the Blackhawks may be bound for glory. Tallon's thanks for turning the team around in just three years, was to be fired last summer just after signing Hossa, the final piece in the puzzle. Tallon, who was named general manager on Monday, on Wednesday will be bound for Germany to meet with Panthers coach Pete DeBoer. Although he has had no success in breaking the chains of apathy that have bound the Panthers for nearly a decade, DeBoer seems likely to survive, at least until Tallon has a chance to evaluate his work. "I've got to give him some tools to work with," Tallon observed.
While I was covering the Blackhawks I knew Tallon first as a player, then as the color man on the Hawks' radio and TV broadcasts, a job he held for 16 years. He also was a scratch golfer, who won the 1969 Canadian Junior Championship and served as the head pro at Highland Park Country Club in suburban Chicago. Tallon became assistant to general manager Bob Pulford a couple of years after I retired and became the main man in 2005. There are many in Chicago who believe Tallon was undermined by Scotty Bowman, who had been brought in earlier as a "senior advisor." Not too much a leap in logic is required to believe that, given that Bowman's son, Stan, moved up from assistant GM to replace Tallon.
Tallon's task in South Florida will be infinitely more difficult than it was in Chicago, which has a hard core of dedicated fans and a long line of great players, stretching from Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita in the '60s through the likes of Tony Esposito, Denny Savard, Chris Chelios and Jeremy Roenick. The Panthers have one Stanley Cup Finals appearance on their team resume, a team noted more for slap-shotting rats off the dressing room wall than for reaching the door to Valhalla. Their lone super star, Pavel Bure, is long gone. Nor is Tallon the first high profile GM to take on the task of making the Panthers relevant in an area where ice normally is found only at the bottom of a cocktail glass.
First there was Mike Keenan, who had led the Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup finals and the Rangers to a championship among many stops in his peripatetic career. Keenan's main claim to infamy was to trade goalie Roberto Luongo to Vancouver in the worst hockey trade since the Blackhawks sent future Hall of Famer Phil Esposito to the Boston Bruins. When Keenan slunk out of town he was succeeded by Jacques Martin, who had turned around the Ottawa Senators, but could work no wonders for the Panthers.
Now it's Tallon's turn. I wish him well. And if things don't work out on the ice, there are plenty of good golf courses down here.
Dale Tallon has done just about everything a man can do if he's a hockey lifer--except sip from the Stanley Cup. Now, just as the Chicago Blackhawks, the team he served for 36 years, are likely going to sip the wine, Tallon has gone to the last place you'd expect to find hockey's holy grail. Heck, the Florida Panthers not only have never won the Stanley Cup, they haven't even made the playoffs for nine years. Of course, there's many a slip between the Cup and the lip, and the Blackhawks were still seven wins away going into Tuesday night's Western Conference Final Series game in Vancouver. But they already have seized home ice advantage for the remainder of the playoffs. This is a team that, when Tallon took over as general manager four years ago, had missed the playoffs for six of the seven preceding seasons.
The Blackhawks were my beat for the final two of my 36 years writing sports for the Chicago Tribune. At the time, they still routinely filled the United Center for every home game and had done so for many years. But it also had been 35 years since the Hawks won the Stanley Cup and another 13 seasons have slipped by since then. Now, thanks to Tallon's coup of drafting Jonathon Toews and Patrick Kane in successive years, trading for Patrick Sharp and Kris Versteeg, and signing free agent Marian Hossa, the Blackhawks may be bound for glory. Tallon's thanks for turning the team around in just three years, was to be fired last summer just after signing Hossa, the final piece in the puzzle. Tallon, who was named general manager on Monday, on Wednesday will be bound for Germany to meet with Panthers coach Pete DeBoer. Although he has had no success in breaking the chains of apathy that have bound the Panthers for nearly a decade, DeBoer seems likely to survive, at least until Tallon has a chance to evaluate his work. "I've got to give him some tools to work with," Tallon observed.
While I was covering the Blackhawks I knew Tallon first as a player, then as the color man on the Hawks' radio and TV broadcasts, a job he held for 16 years. He also was a scratch golfer, who won the 1969 Canadian Junior Championship and served as the head pro at Highland Park Country Club in suburban Chicago. Tallon became assistant to general manager Bob Pulford a couple of years after I retired and became the main man in 2005. There are many in Chicago who believe Tallon was undermined by Scotty Bowman, who had been brought in earlier as a "senior advisor." Not too much a leap in logic is required to believe that, given that Bowman's son, Stan, moved up from assistant GM to replace Tallon.
Tallon's task in South Florida will be infinitely more difficult than it was in Chicago, which has a hard core of dedicated fans and a long line of great players, stretching from Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita in the '60s through the likes of Tony Esposito, Denny Savard, Chris Chelios and Jeremy Roenick. The Panthers have one Stanley Cup Finals appearance on their team resume, a team noted more for slap-shotting rats off the dressing room wall than for reaching the door to Valhalla. Their lone super star, Pavel Bure, is long gone. Nor is Tallon the first high profile GM to take on the task of making the Panthers relevant in an area where ice normally is found only at the bottom of a cocktail glass.
First there was Mike Keenan, who had led the Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup finals and the Rangers to a championship among many stops in his peripatetic career. Keenan's main claim to infamy was to trade goalie Roberto Luongo to Vancouver in the worst hockey trade since the Blackhawks sent future Hall of Famer Phil Esposito to the Boston Bruins. When Keenan slunk out of town he was succeeded by Jacques Martin, who had turned around the Ottawa Senators, but could work no wonders for the Panthers.
Now it's Tallon's turn. I wish him well. And if things don't work out on the ice, there are plenty of good golf courses down here.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
By Bob Markus
There is a scene early in the musical "1776", in which George Washington implores Congress to send him more food, more clothing, more guns and ammunition for his suffering army and, receiving only silence, plaintively asks: Is anybody there? Does anybody care? I think I understand how he felt. I'm into my third year of writing this weekly column and, due entirely to my computer illiteracy, have no idea how many people have read it. I know for sure I have three or four faithful readers. There's Ted, the big noise from Winnetka, where I lived for most of my 36 years writing sports for the Chicago Tribune. Ted's the guy who, whenever I start thinking it may be time to say good night, says "don't do it." There's Charles, my golfing partner, who generally is supportive, always points out my mistakes, and will tell me when he thinks a column sucks. Then there is Paula, my doctor's Girl Friday, who, whenever she sees me, never fails to ask what I'll be writing about next. "Just so you don't write about NASCAR," she says. I try to keep her happy, but this week I'm going to have to at least mention auto racing. Because NASCAR is responsible for adding another reader to my list. That makes four and I know there is a blogger in Chicago who reads me, because he's written a few times to comment and I'd like to write him back but don't have the slightest idea how to do so. See what I mean about computer illiteracy?
The reason I have to mention auto racing this week is that a few days ago I got a phone call out of the blue from Lancaster, Pa. Neither my wife nor I could think of anyone we knew who would be calling us from Pennsylvania Dutch country so we let the call go to voice mail. A little while later my wife listened to our messages and found one from an old friend we hadn't spoken to for years. Back in the early '90s, when I was covering a lot of auto racing for The Tribune, one of the races I usually covered was the Winston Cup (as it was known by then) June race in Michigan. The track is situated in the middle of nowhere. It's official postal designation is Brooklyn, Mich., but the nearest city you've probably heard of is Jackson. There were no really convenient places to stay and we had tried several places when somebody suggested a bed and breakfast right there in Brooklyn. When I called to try to make a reservation for race week-end I was told they were filled up. But they did give me the phone number of a B & B in Homer, some 25-30 miles west of the track. I was able to get a room there and, location aside, it was all you could ask for. The proprietor, Judy, was on the faculty at Michigan State. She couldn't have been nicer. She loaned my wife her car to go antique shopping in nearby Allen while I was at the track. She served terrific breakfasts and when I told her we couldn't have breakfast on Sunday morning because we had to leave early for the track, she got up early to send us off with full stomachs. It was only later that she told us she had hesitated to rent to us because, "I've had trouble with race fans. But I thought I'd try it and see." Evidently we passed the test because the next year Jeff and Wanda Wiker joined us at the breakfast table. They were diehard stock car racing fans from Lancaster, Pa., and we hit it off immediately. In addition to meeting annually in Michigan, I was able to help them get tickets to the brickyard 400 in Indianapolis. But the last time we went to the Michigan race we discovered, to our dismay, that Judy had sold her B & B and moved to Texas.
For awhile we exchanged Christmas cards with the Wikers but, as happens all too often, we somehow stopped communicating and it had probably been 10 years since we had last heard from them. Jeff's message said they were going to go to the Indy 500 for the first time and my immediate thought was they needed help with tickets. Then I remembered that, thanks to Tony George's heavy-handed operation of the world's most famous race, the golden goose had been cooked and tickets were no longer that hard to come by. In fact, Jeff explained, what he wanted was the name of the restaurant the four of us had dined at before the Brickyard 400. He left a number and when I called to tell him he must be thinking of St. Elmo's, he told me that Wanda had discovered My Life in Sports while browsing on her computer and that's how they were able to get in touch. No, he didn't need tickets; a friend had given them his own seats in the grandstand and was going to show them around on race week-end. I hope he'll let me know how they enjoyed their first Indy 500 and that this time we'll stay connected. Under the circumstances I'd hate to lose a single reader.
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Now, as long as we've broached the dreaded NASCAR topic, Paula, I'd like to make a few simple predictions. First, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will win a race this year. He's been in the ballpark a few times and, with his Rick Hendricks backing, he's going to hit one out of the ball park eventually. Second, I think this may be Jeff Gordon's year to win that fifth championship. He hasn't won a race yet but he's finishing pretty consistently in the top five and stands fourth in the standings. He should easily finish in the top 12 and qualify for the Chase. But nothing is ever for certain. Just look at Tiger Woods. How certain are you now that Tiger will catch and pass Jack Nicklaus' record 18 major championships? And have you thought about the similarity in the lives and careers of the two athletes? Both became super stars at an early age. There was a time when it appeared just as certain that Gordon would catch Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt, who each won seven series championships, as that Woods would supplant Nicklaus as the alltime majors winner. Both married beauty queens and both marriages failed. I had lunch once with Gordon and his first wife. She was a beautiful girl and seemed nice. But their divorce was a particularly bitter one. Now, Woods appears headed for the same fate. Gordon is remarried and appears happy. Perhaps Tiger, too, will get a second chance. If I were to guess right now, which of these two would have the happiest ending, I'd pick Gordon.
There is a scene early in the musical "1776", in which George Washington implores Congress to send him more food, more clothing, more guns and ammunition for his suffering army and, receiving only silence, plaintively asks: Is anybody there? Does anybody care? I think I understand how he felt. I'm into my third year of writing this weekly column and, due entirely to my computer illiteracy, have no idea how many people have read it. I know for sure I have three or four faithful readers. There's Ted, the big noise from Winnetka, where I lived for most of my 36 years writing sports for the Chicago Tribune. Ted's the guy who, whenever I start thinking it may be time to say good night, says "don't do it." There's Charles, my golfing partner, who generally is supportive, always points out my mistakes, and will tell me when he thinks a column sucks. Then there is Paula, my doctor's Girl Friday, who, whenever she sees me, never fails to ask what I'll be writing about next. "Just so you don't write about NASCAR," she says. I try to keep her happy, but this week I'm going to have to at least mention auto racing. Because NASCAR is responsible for adding another reader to my list. That makes four and I know there is a blogger in Chicago who reads me, because he's written a few times to comment and I'd like to write him back but don't have the slightest idea how to do so. See what I mean about computer illiteracy?
The reason I have to mention auto racing this week is that a few days ago I got a phone call out of the blue from Lancaster, Pa. Neither my wife nor I could think of anyone we knew who would be calling us from Pennsylvania Dutch country so we let the call go to voice mail. A little while later my wife listened to our messages and found one from an old friend we hadn't spoken to for years. Back in the early '90s, when I was covering a lot of auto racing for The Tribune, one of the races I usually covered was the Winston Cup (as it was known by then) June race in Michigan. The track is situated in the middle of nowhere. It's official postal designation is Brooklyn, Mich., but the nearest city you've probably heard of is Jackson. There were no really convenient places to stay and we had tried several places when somebody suggested a bed and breakfast right there in Brooklyn. When I called to try to make a reservation for race week-end I was told they were filled up. But they did give me the phone number of a B & B in Homer, some 25-30 miles west of the track. I was able to get a room there and, location aside, it was all you could ask for. The proprietor, Judy, was on the faculty at Michigan State. She couldn't have been nicer. She loaned my wife her car to go antique shopping in nearby Allen while I was at the track. She served terrific breakfasts and when I told her we couldn't have breakfast on Sunday morning because we had to leave early for the track, she got up early to send us off with full stomachs. It was only later that she told us she had hesitated to rent to us because, "I've had trouble with race fans. But I thought I'd try it and see." Evidently we passed the test because the next year Jeff and Wanda Wiker joined us at the breakfast table. They were diehard stock car racing fans from Lancaster, Pa., and we hit it off immediately. In addition to meeting annually in Michigan, I was able to help them get tickets to the brickyard 400 in Indianapolis. But the last time we went to the Michigan race we discovered, to our dismay, that Judy had sold her B & B and moved to Texas.
For awhile we exchanged Christmas cards with the Wikers but, as happens all too often, we somehow stopped communicating and it had probably been 10 years since we had last heard from them. Jeff's message said they were going to go to the Indy 500 for the first time and my immediate thought was they needed help with tickets. Then I remembered that, thanks to Tony George's heavy-handed operation of the world's most famous race, the golden goose had been cooked and tickets were no longer that hard to come by. In fact, Jeff explained, what he wanted was the name of the restaurant the four of us had dined at before the Brickyard 400. He left a number and when I called to tell him he must be thinking of St. Elmo's, he told me that Wanda had discovered My Life in Sports while browsing on her computer and that's how they were able to get in touch. No, he didn't need tickets; a friend had given them his own seats in the grandstand and was going to show them around on race week-end. I hope he'll let me know how they enjoyed their first Indy 500 and that this time we'll stay connected. Under the circumstances I'd hate to lose a single reader.
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Now, as long as we've broached the dreaded NASCAR topic, Paula, I'd like to make a few simple predictions. First, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will win a race this year. He's been in the ballpark a few times and, with his Rick Hendricks backing, he's going to hit one out of the ball park eventually. Second, I think this may be Jeff Gordon's year to win that fifth championship. He hasn't won a race yet but he's finishing pretty consistently in the top five and stands fourth in the standings. He should easily finish in the top 12 and qualify for the Chase. But nothing is ever for certain. Just look at Tiger Woods. How certain are you now that Tiger will catch and pass Jack Nicklaus' record 18 major championships? And have you thought about the similarity in the lives and careers of the two athletes? Both became super stars at an early age. There was a time when it appeared just as certain that Gordon would catch Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt, who each won seven series championships, as that Woods would supplant Nicklaus as the alltime majors winner. Both married beauty queens and both marriages failed. I had lunch once with Gordon and his first wife. She was a beautiful girl and seemed nice. But their divorce was a particularly bitter one. Now, Woods appears headed for the same fate. Gordon is remarried and appears happy. Perhaps Tiger, too, will get a second chance. If I were to guess right now, which of these two would have the happiest ending, I'd pick Gordon.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
By Bob Markus
Sometimes you have to look behind the news to find the news. Headline: McIlroy Shoots 62; Wins Quail Hollow. Subhead: Phil Second. Everyone knew that the precocious McIlroy, who was two days shy of his 21st birthday when he fired the shots heard 'round the world Sunday, was going to win a PGA event sooner or later. That he would win it in such spectacular fashion, nobody could have foreseen. McIlroy, who had failed to make the cut in the Masters, had returned to his home town in Northern Ireland in an attempt to freshen up his game. It didn't appear to have done much good for the first two rounds of the Quail Hollow tournament in Charlotte, N.C. Until a late rally on Friday, it appeared that he was going to miss the cut again. With three holes to play, he was two shots away from the cut line--on the wrong side. He took care of that with an eagle, thanks to what he called the most important shot of his season, his second to the par five hole. He made the cut right on the number and shot a 66 on Saturday, which is known in the golf world as "moving day." But even though he had managed to escape the outhouse, the penthouse seemed out of his reach. Then came one of the greatest final round comebacks within memory. His victory margin over Mickelson was four shots. Johnny Miller was the standard setter for final round heroics when he posted a 63 on a Sunday to win the U.S. Open. Miller built an entire career on that one memorable day. McIlroy may never shoot another 62, but he seems destined to be a force de tour for many years to come.
Is this the Messiah that the royal order of Tiger bashers has long awaited? After all, McIlroy on Sunday became the first golfer since Tiger Woods to win a PGA event before his 21st birthday. But before you get too carried away, remember it was only a year or so ago that Anthony Kim was going to be the anointed one. That is, if Camilo Villegas didn't pull Tiger's tail first. Before that there was Justin Rose and before him was Lee Westwood. They're all still young enough to challenge Woods, although Westwood is beginning to take on that unwanted burden of being labelled the best player never to win a major.
Westwood can take comfort in the fact that it wasn't too many years ago that Mickelson was carrying that load all by himself. Now it appears that Lefty may be ready to take on the Tiger taming role himself. Not that he'll ever match Woods for tour victories and majors won. He starts from too far behind and he's five years older than the 34-year-old Woods. But the best story to come out of Quail Hollow might well have been Mickelson's stellar showing just two weeks after his Masters victory. Mickelson shot a final round 68 and had McIlroy been merely brilliant, shot a 66, there would have been a playoff. The kid shoots a 67 and Phil wins. This is the kind of consistency Phil fanatics have long awaited. With the Players' championship right around the corner and Woods coming off the worst round of golf since he was a two-year-old, Mickelson is in position to snatch the World's No.1 ranking out of Tigers' hands.
All of a sudden this is beginning to look like Palmer vs. Nicklaus redux. Like Palmer, Mickelson is the crowd pleasing go-for-broke everyman who never met a shot he wouldn't take. Woods is the mega-talented, aloof shot maker who makes the golf purists swoon, just as Jack was in his day, although Nicklaus was never as stand-offish as Tiger tends to be. Woods vs. Mickelson may well be the face of golf for the next four or five years. But, inevitably, there will be a changing of the guard . Who will be the new face of golf? McIlroy? Kim? Villegas? Goodness, I've forgotten all about Sergio Garcia, haven't I? Well, Sergio is yesterday's news. Tomorrow's news makers likely will come from the trio mentioned above. But keep an eye on Ryo Ishikawa. Ishikawa is even younger (he's 18) than McIlroy and on Sunday he one-upped the Irishman by shooting 58--that's 58, folks--to win a professional tournament in Japan. How do you say "Hold that Tiger" in Japanese?
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Is there a better story in sports right now than that of Calvin Borel? Borel, who worked in obscurity for most of his first 40 years, is horse racing's new super star. His victory on Super Saver in Saturday's Kentucky Derby was his third in the last four Derbies and nobody had ever done that. Not Eddie Arcaro, not Willie Shoemaker, not Bill Hartack, not even that handy little guy named Sande made famous by a Grantland Rice lead. Borel's newfound fame seems well deserved. Before Saturday's race, cameras caught him with tears rolling down his cheeks during the playing of "My Old Kentucky Home." After he'd guided Super Saver to the finish line in his usual hug-the-rail style, Borel could be seen weeping again. Well, after all, the lyric is "weep no more my lady," not "weep no more my jockey." If I had a Derby horse I'd put him--or her--in Borel's hands. Then, after we'd won, we'd all go out and have a good cry.
Sometimes you have to look behind the news to find the news. Headline: McIlroy Shoots 62; Wins Quail Hollow. Subhead: Phil Second. Everyone knew that the precocious McIlroy, who was two days shy of his 21st birthday when he fired the shots heard 'round the world Sunday, was going to win a PGA event sooner or later. That he would win it in such spectacular fashion, nobody could have foreseen. McIlroy, who had failed to make the cut in the Masters, had returned to his home town in Northern Ireland in an attempt to freshen up his game. It didn't appear to have done much good for the first two rounds of the Quail Hollow tournament in Charlotte, N.C. Until a late rally on Friday, it appeared that he was going to miss the cut again. With three holes to play, he was two shots away from the cut line--on the wrong side. He took care of that with an eagle, thanks to what he called the most important shot of his season, his second to the par five hole. He made the cut right on the number and shot a 66 on Saturday, which is known in the golf world as "moving day." But even though he had managed to escape the outhouse, the penthouse seemed out of his reach. Then came one of the greatest final round comebacks within memory. His victory margin over Mickelson was four shots. Johnny Miller was the standard setter for final round heroics when he posted a 63 on a Sunday to win the U.S. Open. Miller built an entire career on that one memorable day. McIlroy may never shoot another 62, but he seems destined to be a force de tour for many years to come.
Is this the Messiah that the royal order of Tiger bashers has long awaited? After all, McIlroy on Sunday became the first golfer since Tiger Woods to win a PGA event before his 21st birthday. But before you get too carried away, remember it was only a year or so ago that Anthony Kim was going to be the anointed one. That is, if Camilo Villegas didn't pull Tiger's tail first. Before that there was Justin Rose and before him was Lee Westwood. They're all still young enough to challenge Woods, although Westwood is beginning to take on that unwanted burden of being labelled the best player never to win a major.
Westwood can take comfort in the fact that it wasn't too many years ago that Mickelson was carrying that load all by himself. Now it appears that Lefty may be ready to take on the Tiger taming role himself. Not that he'll ever match Woods for tour victories and majors won. He starts from too far behind and he's five years older than the 34-year-old Woods. But the best story to come out of Quail Hollow might well have been Mickelson's stellar showing just two weeks after his Masters victory. Mickelson shot a final round 68 and had McIlroy been merely brilliant, shot a 66, there would have been a playoff. The kid shoots a 67 and Phil wins. This is the kind of consistency Phil fanatics have long awaited. With the Players' championship right around the corner and Woods coming off the worst round of golf since he was a two-year-old, Mickelson is in position to snatch the World's No.1 ranking out of Tigers' hands.
All of a sudden this is beginning to look like Palmer vs. Nicklaus redux. Like Palmer, Mickelson is the crowd pleasing go-for-broke everyman who never met a shot he wouldn't take. Woods is the mega-talented, aloof shot maker who makes the golf purists swoon, just as Jack was in his day, although Nicklaus was never as stand-offish as Tiger tends to be. Woods vs. Mickelson may well be the face of golf for the next four or five years. But, inevitably, there will be a changing of the guard . Who will be the new face of golf? McIlroy? Kim? Villegas? Goodness, I've forgotten all about Sergio Garcia, haven't I? Well, Sergio is yesterday's news. Tomorrow's news makers likely will come from the trio mentioned above. But keep an eye on Ryo Ishikawa. Ishikawa is even younger (he's 18) than McIlroy and on Sunday he one-upped the Irishman by shooting 58--that's 58, folks--to win a professional tournament in Japan. How do you say "Hold that Tiger" in Japanese?
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Is there a better story in sports right now than that of Calvin Borel? Borel, who worked in obscurity for most of his first 40 years, is horse racing's new super star. His victory on Super Saver in Saturday's Kentucky Derby was his third in the last four Derbies and nobody had ever done that. Not Eddie Arcaro, not Willie Shoemaker, not Bill Hartack, not even that handy little guy named Sande made famous by a Grantland Rice lead. Borel's newfound fame seems well deserved. Before Saturday's race, cameras caught him with tears rolling down his cheeks during the playing of "My Old Kentucky Home." After he'd guided Super Saver to the finish line in his usual hug-the-rail style, Borel could be seen weeping again. Well, after all, the lyric is "weep no more my lady," not "weep no more my jockey." If I had a Derby horse I'd put him--or her--in Borel's hands. Then, after we'd won, we'd all go out and have a good cry.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
By Bob Markus
The NFL draft has become a cottage industry--except it's gotten so big you'd probably have to call it a mansion industry. There were 45 million viewers for the three-day extravaganza which ended Saturday and here's what they saw. Nothing. No dazzling runs. No crunching blocks. No thunderous hits. Not live, anyway. What they saw was a bunch of guys sitting around a desk and arguing about which player would be taken next and which player should be taken next and then explaining why they all turned out to be wrong. Invariably, whoever was selected, according to the panel, had a lot of "upside" and was an excellent choice. Apparently, Mel Kiper never met a player he didn't like, except Tim Tebow, whom he absolutely hated. Not personally, you understand, but as an NFL quarterback. A lot of people agreed with him, a glaring exception being Denver Broncos' coach, Josh McDaniels, who has gambled his career on Tebow.
My personal view is that McDaniels wins that gamble and if Tebow isn't the next John Elway he at least could be the next Joe Kapp.
So who is Mel Kiper and why should anyone care what he thinks? Kiper is the self-proclaimed draft guru and his greatest talent appears to be the ability to make people believe they should listen to him. Before there was Mel Kiper there was Jimmy the Greek, who was not a draft expert, but an oddsmaker. Actually, what he was was a very good p.r. man for Jimmy the Greek, who made more than a decent living with himself as the only product. Kiper has taken it to the next level. He has been producing a draft related magazine for nearly 30 years and has been a part of ESPN's draft coverage since 1984. He works hard at what he does, appears to have a lot of contacts among NFL scouts and executives and often is spot on in his evaluations. Then again he picked Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen to go fourth in the first round and the Irish star ended up being a second round pick, the 48th player chosen. Maybe what Kiper said was that Clausen would go forth. And he could always point out that, since the Carolina Panthers had no first round pick and they grabbed Clausen at the first opportunity, he was in a sense a first rounder.
Kiper was by no means alone in the high value he placed on Clausen. Just about everyone had him rated much higher than Tebow. So did I. In fact I thought Clausen was the best pro quarterback prospect in the draft, better than Sam Bradford, who was the first man chosen, despite having missed most of last season with a shoulder injury. Presumably, the draft evaluators of the 30 teams that passed on Clausen at least once (the Bears didn't draft until the third round and Clausen was long gone by then) knew something I don 't. In fact, I'm sure they know a lot of things that I don't. It's their business to know. Well, it used to be my business, too, even though I didn't bring the depth of football knowledge to the task that the pro football people possess. Yet I do know this much: the pros can be wrong. Horribly wrong. Think Ryan Leaf, a No.2 pick who ended up being a total bust as a pro quarterback. In fact, Leaf is the poster boy for NFL picks gone wrong, so much so that he was quoted this week as saying he's glad he wasn't chosen No.1 (over Peyton Manning) or the outcries would have been much worse. There is hope for Leaf, yet, however as DeMarcus Russell, the LSU quarterback the Oakland Raiders took with the No.1 pick a few years back, has been, well, not a flameout, more like a slowly dying ember.
I don't expect Bradford to be totally useless, but I don't expect him to become a super star either. The St. Louis Rams obviously do. We'll wait and see but my guess is as good as theirs. Think the NFL teams all know what they're doing? Then how did Tom Brady go til the fifth round before being drafted. Why did Kurt Warner never get drafted at all? In the late 1980s I was covering the Bears for the Chicago Tribune when they made a linebacker/defensive end from Ohio State their No. 1 draft pick. I was shocked. I had covered three or four Ohio State games in my previous role as national college sports writer and I had never seen this man make a tackle. Never heard his name called. But he could run a 4.6 40 and jump through the roof. He just couldn't do it when there was anyone standing in front of him.
For every high draft pick who fails, there's an unheralded late round pick who emerges as a star. Figuring out which is which is the challenge. For instance, I expect Golden Tate, the Notre Dame wide receiver taken with the 60th pick by Seattle, to be a star. The Dallas Cowboys obviously feel Dez Bryant will be better. We'll see. Maybe that's why the draft has become such a big deal. It's a game anyone can play. All you need is a TV set and an opinion.
The NFL draft has become a cottage industry--except it's gotten so big you'd probably have to call it a mansion industry. There were 45 million viewers for the three-day extravaganza which ended Saturday and here's what they saw. Nothing. No dazzling runs. No crunching blocks. No thunderous hits. Not live, anyway. What they saw was a bunch of guys sitting around a desk and arguing about which player would be taken next and which player should be taken next and then explaining why they all turned out to be wrong. Invariably, whoever was selected, according to the panel, had a lot of "upside" and was an excellent choice. Apparently, Mel Kiper never met a player he didn't like, except Tim Tebow, whom he absolutely hated. Not personally, you understand, but as an NFL quarterback. A lot of people agreed with him, a glaring exception being Denver Broncos' coach, Josh McDaniels, who has gambled his career on Tebow.
My personal view is that McDaniels wins that gamble and if Tebow isn't the next John Elway he at least could be the next Joe Kapp.
So who is Mel Kiper and why should anyone care what he thinks? Kiper is the self-proclaimed draft guru and his greatest talent appears to be the ability to make people believe they should listen to him. Before there was Mel Kiper there was Jimmy the Greek, who was not a draft expert, but an oddsmaker. Actually, what he was was a very good p.r. man for Jimmy the Greek, who made more than a decent living with himself as the only product. Kiper has taken it to the next level. He has been producing a draft related magazine for nearly 30 years and has been a part of ESPN's draft coverage since 1984. He works hard at what he does, appears to have a lot of contacts among NFL scouts and executives and often is spot on in his evaluations. Then again he picked Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen to go fourth in the first round and the Irish star ended up being a second round pick, the 48th player chosen. Maybe what Kiper said was that Clausen would go forth. And he could always point out that, since the Carolina Panthers had no first round pick and they grabbed Clausen at the first opportunity, he was in a sense a first rounder.
Kiper was by no means alone in the high value he placed on Clausen. Just about everyone had him rated much higher than Tebow. So did I. In fact I thought Clausen was the best pro quarterback prospect in the draft, better than Sam Bradford, who was the first man chosen, despite having missed most of last season with a shoulder injury. Presumably, the draft evaluators of the 30 teams that passed on Clausen at least once (the Bears didn't draft until the third round and Clausen was long gone by then) knew something I don 't. In fact, I'm sure they know a lot of things that I don't. It's their business to know. Well, it used to be my business, too, even though I didn't bring the depth of football knowledge to the task that the pro football people possess. Yet I do know this much: the pros can be wrong. Horribly wrong. Think Ryan Leaf, a No.2 pick who ended up being a total bust as a pro quarterback. In fact, Leaf is the poster boy for NFL picks gone wrong, so much so that he was quoted this week as saying he's glad he wasn't chosen No.1 (over Peyton Manning) or the outcries would have been much worse. There is hope for Leaf, yet, however as DeMarcus Russell, the LSU quarterback the Oakland Raiders took with the No.1 pick a few years back, has been, well, not a flameout, more like a slowly dying ember.
I don't expect Bradford to be totally useless, but I don't expect him to become a super star either. The St. Louis Rams obviously do. We'll wait and see but my guess is as good as theirs. Think the NFL teams all know what they're doing? Then how did Tom Brady go til the fifth round before being drafted. Why did Kurt Warner never get drafted at all? In the late 1980s I was covering the Bears for the Chicago Tribune when they made a linebacker/defensive end from Ohio State their No. 1 draft pick. I was shocked. I had covered three or four Ohio State games in my previous role as national college sports writer and I had never seen this man make a tackle. Never heard his name called. But he could run a 4.6 40 and jump through the roof. He just couldn't do it when there was anyone standing in front of him.
For every high draft pick who fails, there's an unheralded late round pick who emerges as a star. Figuring out which is which is the challenge. For instance, I expect Golden Tate, the Notre Dame wide receiver taken with the 60th pick by Seattle, to be a star. The Dallas Cowboys obviously feel Dez Bryant will be better. We'll see. Maybe that's why the draft has become such a big deal. It's a game anyone can play. All you need is a TV set and an opinion.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
By Bob Markus
This is how cynical we've all become: When golfer Brian Davis called a two-stroke penalty on himself on the first hole of a sudden death playoff Sunday there were fans calling into talk shows scoffing at the notion the Englishman had any credit coming to him for his act of sportsmanship. "He might have been worried that someone taping the tournament at home had spotted the infraction and would report it to the USGA," was one caller's suggestion. If that would have happened and Davis had signed an incorrect score card, he would have been disqualified and, instead of the $615, 600 he earned as runner-up to winner Jim Furyk, would have gone home with nothing but a ruined reputation.
That is possible. In today's world of ubiquitous electronic devices, not only is Big Brother watching us, but a whole bunch of nieces, nephews, and total strangers, too. But Davis would have had to be mighty quick-witted to instantly run through his options and come up with the honorable solution. Having birdied the 72d hole to tie Furyk for the lead, Davis had hit a horrid second shot from just about the same distance he had nailed a six iron to within 15 feet moments earlier. The ball landed in a rock-studded ravine and, although marginally playable, was sitting in a nest of vegetation--grass, twigs, reeds, you name it. By the rules of golf, Davis was not permitted to ground his club nor clear away any of the impediments before striking the ball.
Clearly, he was in trouble. Furyk was sitting two putts away from a routine par, so Davis likely would have to get the ball up and down in two strokes to prolong the playoff. The CBS announcers were speculating that he might be better off taking a penalty for an unplayable lie and hoping to chip in for his par. Instead, Davis went for it and hit an amazing shot that found the putting surface, although he would have had to drain a lengthy putt--or hoped Furyk would three putt--to halve the hole. It would have been a slim chance, but at least it would have been a chance. As it turned out, Furyk never had to use his putter. Davis had barely completed his follow through when he called for a tour official and reported that he thought he might have touched a blade of grass on his back swing. After watching the replay several times, the official ruled that Davis, indeed, had touched a tiny reed as he drew his wedge back. The reed barely moved before settling back in place and the ball didn't move at all. It's highly unlikely a viewer at home would have caught the slight motion without the benefit of a replay. Davis could have kept quiet and possibly have recorded his first Tour victory.
But golfers are taught to follow the rules of golf and most of them do so, without question and without fail. Sometimes golfers cheat whether it be overtly or accidentally. Both Vijay Singh and Colin Montgomerie have been accused of cheating at some point in their careers. Both have denied it. Golf is supposed to be a self policing sport. From their first lesson, whether it be by a golf pro or a friend or relative, golfers are taught to revere the game and respect its rules. Most of us try and most of us fail. In my regular foursome there is one of us who concedes himself five foot putts if he has already taken two or three. Another one frequently forgets penalty strokes. I admit I don't count whiffs if nobody is watching, although I do count them in a sand trap, providing I at least take some sand. I'm not proud of it, but there you are.
Golf is a beautiful game and part of its beauty lies in its adherence to an ethical code that is not present in other sports. Baseball players do not tell the umpire they trapped that sinking liner and basketball players don't tell the referee they stepped in front of their opponent in order to draw a charge. Football players don't tell the officials they stepped on the out of bounds line before coming back to make a catch. Even boxers will climb the ring ropes and throw both arms in the air--the universal victory gesture--in a futile attempt to influence a decision that has already been rendered. Some call-in fans have wondered why Davis is being commended for doing what the rules and mores of the game require. To them my suggestion is: take $410, 400 (the difference between first and second place money in the Heritage Classic) out of the bank and give it to your next door neighbor. Then maybe you will start to understand.
This is how cynical we've all become: When golfer Brian Davis called a two-stroke penalty on himself on the first hole of a sudden death playoff Sunday there were fans calling into talk shows scoffing at the notion the Englishman had any credit coming to him for his act of sportsmanship. "He might have been worried that someone taping the tournament at home had spotted the infraction and would report it to the USGA," was one caller's suggestion. If that would have happened and Davis had signed an incorrect score card, he would have been disqualified and, instead of the $615, 600 he earned as runner-up to winner Jim Furyk, would have gone home with nothing but a ruined reputation.
That is possible. In today's world of ubiquitous electronic devices, not only is Big Brother watching us, but a whole bunch of nieces, nephews, and total strangers, too. But Davis would have had to be mighty quick-witted to instantly run through his options and come up with the honorable solution. Having birdied the 72d hole to tie Furyk for the lead, Davis had hit a horrid second shot from just about the same distance he had nailed a six iron to within 15 feet moments earlier. The ball landed in a rock-studded ravine and, although marginally playable, was sitting in a nest of vegetation--grass, twigs, reeds, you name it. By the rules of golf, Davis was not permitted to ground his club nor clear away any of the impediments before striking the ball.
Clearly, he was in trouble. Furyk was sitting two putts away from a routine par, so Davis likely would have to get the ball up and down in two strokes to prolong the playoff. The CBS announcers were speculating that he might be better off taking a penalty for an unplayable lie and hoping to chip in for his par. Instead, Davis went for it and hit an amazing shot that found the putting surface, although he would have had to drain a lengthy putt--or hoped Furyk would three putt--to halve the hole. It would have been a slim chance, but at least it would have been a chance. As it turned out, Furyk never had to use his putter. Davis had barely completed his follow through when he called for a tour official and reported that he thought he might have touched a blade of grass on his back swing. After watching the replay several times, the official ruled that Davis, indeed, had touched a tiny reed as he drew his wedge back. The reed barely moved before settling back in place and the ball didn't move at all. It's highly unlikely a viewer at home would have caught the slight motion without the benefit of a replay. Davis could have kept quiet and possibly have recorded his first Tour victory.
But golfers are taught to follow the rules of golf and most of them do so, without question and without fail. Sometimes golfers cheat whether it be overtly or accidentally. Both Vijay Singh and Colin Montgomerie have been accused of cheating at some point in their careers. Both have denied it. Golf is supposed to be a self policing sport. From their first lesson, whether it be by a golf pro or a friend or relative, golfers are taught to revere the game and respect its rules. Most of us try and most of us fail. In my regular foursome there is one of us who concedes himself five foot putts if he has already taken two or three. Another one frequently forgets penalty strokes. I admit I don't count whiffs if nobody is watching, although I do count them in a sand trap, providing I at least take some sand. I'm not proud of it, but there you are.
Golf is a beautiful game and part of its beauty lies in its adherence to an ethical code that is not present in other sports. Baseball players do not tell the umpire they trapped that sinking liner and basketball players don't tell the referee they stepped in front of their opponent in order to draw a charge. Football players don't tell the officials they stepped on the out of bounds line before coming back to make a catch. Even boxers will climb the ring ropes and throw both arms in the air--the universal victory gesture--in a futile attempt to influence a decision that has already been rendered. Some call-in fans have wondered why Davis is being commended for doing what the rules and mores of the game require. To them my suggestion is: take $410, 400 (the difference between first and second place money in the Heritage Classic) out of the bank and give it to your next door neighbor. Then maybe you will start to understand.
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