By Bob Markus
When new acquaintances find out that I used to be a sports writer, they almost inevitably ask me one of two questions: What was your favorite sport to cover; what was the single most memorable event you covered? Those were not easy questions to answer, particularly the first one. In 36 years writing sports for The Chicago Tribune I covered every major beat and found something to like in most of them. Aside from writing a daily column, which I did for 11 years, the most fun I had was in being the national college football and basketball writer. Not only did I get to cover some of the most famous games in college sports history--Villanova's upset of Georgetown in the 1985 NCAA tournament final, Texas' victory over Arkansas in the 1969 shootout in the hills, Nebraska's 35-31 win over Oklahoma in one of the many "games of the century"--but I got to see an estimated 100 college campuses, from the University of Washington in the far Northwest to the University of Miami, which is nearly as far Southeast as you can get. One of the best parts of the job was walking--and sometimes running--through the various college campuses on a Saturday morning. On a run through the LSU campus one morning I was brought up short when I came face to face with the live tiger mascot. At Mississippi there was The Grove, the most sophisticated tailgate setting in the country, where the girls wear designer dresses and the men jackets and ties and watch the football team parade by on the way to the stadium. My vote for most beautiful college campus--Pepperdine, which sits high atop a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Malibu. So I could have answered: college football and basketball--but I didn't.
Covering baseball fulltime was another beat I found enjoyable--perhaps "satisfying" would be a better word. The baseball beat is hard! It's seven days a week from the middle of February when the pitchers and catchers--and baseball beat writers--report to spring training until the end of October when the World Series ends. Even when the players have all gone home there is work to do for the beat writer, winter meetings to attend, possible trades to be discussed and, generally, in January, a goodwill tour to the hinterlands with the manager and some of the key players. But the beat has its compensations. Although there is a lot of travelling, there is not the frenetic Cleveland today Denver tomorrow ratrace of the NBA. In most cases you stay two to four days in a given town, long enough to send your laundry out and get it back. You're staying at the team hotel, which is usually a four star or better and if you manage your meal money well, you can indulge in the occasional gourmet dinner. Although some people find baseball dull, I agree with the minor league executive who once told me, "the thing I love about baseball is there's an orgasm in every ball game." Think about it. In even the most mundane of games there usually comes a point when a single at bat can change the complexion. The slow pace of the game, while perhaps irritating to some, gives the baseball writer time to plan his story well before the final out and the slow unwinding of the season lets him settle into a rhythm that no other sport permits. But baseball was not my favorite sport, either. In fact, the two sports that I loved covering the most were not fulltime beats.
They are boxing and auto racing. I loved them both for the same reason. The people. I never met an inarticulate boxer or race car driver. Both sports operate under an almost palpable canopy of dread, the danger inherent in each always lurking somewhere beneath the surface, never spoken of, but also never entirely out of mind. A race driver will answer your question if you speak of the life and death aspects of his profession, but he will not dwell on it, nor will he bring up the subject himself. Race drivers are the most honest athletes of all. They never fail to run out the grounders. A driver can be hopelessly out of a race, but he will never stop trying to get his car around the next corner as quickly as possible. Boxers share this trait. The distinction between the two sports is that the race driver knows in the back of his mind he could be hurt, while the boxer knows for an absolute certainty that he is going to get hurt at least to some extent.
Now that you know the answer to question No. 1, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out my answer to question No. 2. Whenever asked about my most memorable event I always come up with a three-part answer. In no particular order they are: The first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight in Madison Square Garden; The 1972 Munich Olympics; The 1988 Indianapolis 500 when I spent the whole month of May working on Teo Fabi's pit crew and filing a daily story about it. Since this year's Indy 500 is just around the corner I'll focus in on that one. It started with a phone call from Michael Knight, the public relations man--one of the alltime best--for the new Quaker State Porsche team that was bringing the iconic German sports car back to Indianapolis. Knight told me that as part of their p.r. effort they were going to let one writer work in the pits on every race day. He asked me if I'd like to do it for the Indianapolis 500 and I answered, "does it have to be just on race day? Could I do it for the whole month?" He, of course, was delighted at the prospect of having a daily mention of his team in the midwest's largest paper. My sports editor, Gene Quinn, was not quite so sanguine about it. "You can do it on two conditions," he said. "No. 1 you won't do anything to get yourself hurt and No.2 you won't do anything that makes the Tribune responsible for affecting the outcome of the race." I crossed my fingers behind my back and agreed. There's no way I could guarantee either of those demands. Danger is inherent to the sport. I had been in the pits when Wally Dallenbach's car burst into flames not six feet in front of me. In 1973 I had been running from my seat in the stands behind the pits toward the fourth turn where Swede Savage had just crashed--fatally, as it would turn out, when I heard a loud "thump" which I later found out was the sound of a crew member being fatally struck by a fire truck racing the wrong way up pit road. I didn't expect anything like that to happen to me, but I couldn't guarantee it.
My main job during the week before qualifying was to time driver Teo Fabi's speed on the front straightaway. My first radar gun was flawed and so the first day's effort was wasted. As the week went along it was obvious that the new Porsche--actually a March chassis with a Porsche engine--was underpowered and was in danger of failing to make the race. On the eve of the first Saturday of qualifying--pole day--there was an emergency meeting in our garage and one of our consultants mentioned that there was a way to cheat the popoff valve and gain a little extra speed. Did team general manager Al Holbert want to try it? This presented me with a serious dilemma. On one hand I was a newspaperman who had promised to tell all. On the other hand I was a member of the racing team. I solved the problem by walking out of the garage. Knowing the late Al Holbert, I doubt that there was any cheating the next day when Fabi qualified the car, albeit at a speed slow enough that we all were on pins and needles until the final second of qualifying on the following
Sunday. It meant just as much to me as it did for anybody else because if Teo didn't make the race, there went my story. Race day was the most exciting of my life. When I stood behind our car at the starting line during the prerace ceremonies, for the first time in my life I was overcome with emotion at the playing of the National Anthem. Then, after the firing up of our engine, I joined the rest of the crew in the mad dash back to our pits, probably a quarter of a mile sprint.
I had two jobs for race day. One was to hold the stop sign and lower it in front of Fabi to mark his stopping point whenever he entered the pits. The second was to man the water hose and squirt water on the fuel cell after each refueling. This was to prevent any chance of a fuel spill from igniting. I was nervous about this job, because the fuel cell was located behind the driver and with the open cockpit it was possible I could hit Fabi in the face. Teo would not have liked that. I had had no chance to practice, so the first pit stop was a source of great anxiety. Teo came in a little hot, but stopped in time. When the fueler pulled the hose from the cell I managed to wash it down with no problem; then Teo sped on his way. Seconds later I heard a roar and everyone in our pits was looking down pit road. A wheel had come off our car and Teo had crashed in the pits. I put on my writer's hat and ran down to join in the interview with Fabi, then went back to the car and helped push it all the way down pit road and into our garage in Gasoline Alley. My career as a pit crew member was over, but I'll never forget it. And Sunday, when 33 cars come thundering into turn one of the world's most famous speedway, I'll have a pretty good idea of the emotions beating in each competitor's chest, from the drivers to the lowliest crew men. Bless them all.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
By Bob Markus
Like trying to decide whether to select the Porterhouse steak or the grilled veal chop for the main course--or perhaps even the char-grilled salmon--this week's sports news has provided me with an embarrassment of riches. Unlike some weeks, when I struggle to come up with a timely subject, there is no end to the possibilities.
I could, for instance, comment on the Players' championship in golf, an event which was notable not only for Henrik Stenson's superb final round on a course with greens so sun-slicked they might have been mistaken for a series of giant greased griddles, but for Tiger Woods' stunning failure to mount even the slightest challenge. Even though he entered the final round five shots behind leader Alex Cjeka, those of us who have followed Tiger's career figured the world's No.1 ranked player had Cjeka right where he wanted him--as playing partner in the final group on Sunday. Had any of us known that Cjeka, whose driving had been metronomically near perfect for three days, was going to start hitting the ball to places few humans had ever visited before and wind up shooting a 79, we'd have conceded the trophy to Woods and started channel surfing for something a little less mundane. At the very least we expected Woods to come down to the final hole with a chance to win. But it became clear from the outset that this was not Tiger's day. Or Tiger's week. Or Tiger's venue. He couldn't drive the ball in the fairway. He couldn't snuggle his iron shots close enough to the diabolically placed pins. He couldn't putt. But he still finished eighth. Think of that. This man is so good that even when he plays poorly he's a miracle shot or two away from winning. There are 150 or so players who start out each week hoping to conquer a given golf course. And every week, whether he plays well or poorly, Tiger Woods is among the top 10. I don't have the data to prove it, but I suspect no golfer ever has played to that level of consistency.
Another angle I might pursue is the revelation that Los Angeles Dodgers super star Manny Ramirez has been suspended for 50 games for failing a drug test. Ramirez reportedly took a female fertility drug and since it is unlikely that the carefree slugger is trying to get pregnant, big league officials could only conclude that he took the banned substance because it is a masking agent for steroids. It no longer surprises me when a baseball player is pinched for a drug indiscretion. Not when megastars like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez have been accused of, and in A-Rod's case confessed to, using performance enhancing drugs. I'm not completely convinced that taking steroids enhances performance all that much. For a body builder or weight lifter, yes. But no matter how juiced up a slugger is, he still has to make hard contact with a little white ball thrown by some hulking hurler who might himself be on steroids for all we know. Drugs of some sort have been around baseball almost since its infancy. I've been told, although I've never seen it, that many clubhouses had jars of "greenies" or "uppers" lying around for players to dip into. Considering the length of the season and the constant daily grind of a baseball campaign, it would be surprising if players did not look for something to get them through the dog days. What about so-called energy drinks? Should they be banned, too? Just asking.
A third intriguing story is that Kentucky Derby winning jockey Calvin Borel is giving up his ride on Mine That Bird, forfeiting an admitedly slim chance to ride a Triple Crown winner. Once it was announced that Rachel Alexandra, the filly who romped home 20 lengths ahead of the field in the Kentucky Oaks, was going to challenge the big boys in the Preakness, it would have been surprising if Borel had not decided to switch. Borel had been aboard the filly for the rocket ride in the Oaks the day before his masterly ride on Mine That Bird in the Derby and, asked which of the two horses was the better, unhesitatingly had named Rachel Alexandra. Although it was not 100 per cent guaranteed that the filly would be in the Preakness, she was the early line favorite. Fillies have won Triple Crown races before and as recently as two years ago Rags to Riches won the Preakness. The shortest of the Triple Crown events, the Preakness is probably the least likely venue to produce a calamity, although try telling that to the owners of Barbaro, who broke down at the outset of that 2007 race. Still, there is always an injury concern when a filly challenges male horses. Only last year, Eight Belles had to be destroyed after finishing second in the Kentucky Derby, but going down with two broken front ankles. But the one race that still is the elephant in the living room when it comes to boy-girl horse racing, is the fateful match race between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure in 1975. Ruffian was the Wonder Woman of horses, undefeated and winner of the Filly Triple Crown. As beloved as any race horse before or since, Ruffian was giving a good account of herself until reaching the mile pole at Belmont Park, where she broke her leg, but attempted to keep running. Emergency surgery was performed in an attempt to save her, but in the end she had to be euthanized.
But I'm not going to write any of those stories this week. Instead I'm going to concentrate on an event that has personal meaning for me. My last fulltime beat as a sports writer for The Chicago Tribune was the Blackhawks. I had been a Hawks' fan since the late forties, a time when there was so little interest in hockey in Chicago that a 13-year-old boy could go the The Stadium by himself on a game night and, when asked if he was by himself, be given a seat in the front row of the balcony, squarely on the red line. By the time I started writing for The Tribune, things had changed. Tommy Ivan had been brought in from the Detroit Red Wings to put together the team that, in 1961, would win the Stanley Cup, ironically over Ivan's former team. Although they have not won the Cup since then, by the time I started writing a column for The Tribune, the Blackhawks were the hottest thing in town, filling the Stadium nightly with their charismatic stars like Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, and goalie Glenn Hall. I got to know Hull and Mikita fairly well. Hull in particular was a dream to cover, always willing to spend time with a writer, often to the dismay of his teammates who were waiting on the bus for the Golden Jet to join them. In the old Stadium the press box was behind one goal at mezzanine level and one night Mikita rocketed a slap shot that skipped off a stick and flew into the press box, where I reflexively tried to catch it. Afterwards in the dressing room, Stan looked at me and said, "are you crazy?" It had never occurred to me that he would follow the puck all the way to its final resting place. After I was replaced as a columnist in the winter of 1978, I lost touch with hockey until one day about 15 years later I got a call at home from our sports editor, who told me to get out to The Stadium because the beat writer had some domestic problem and would not be back for awhile. And, by the way, give us a feature story for Sunday on Wayne Gretzky. So I covered the Blackhawks for the final month of that season and found out I liked it. Hockey players seemed to be more accessible and more congenial than the other athletes I had been dealing with. Besides, at the time, I was at the mercy of an assistant sports editor who kept giving me assignments that made me want to throw up. One I recall was about the Korean-American Olympics, a story that required me to head for the Korean-American enclave on Chicago's North side and throw myself on the mercy of the event's p.r. man. I asked him to get me an interview with any athlete who spoke English. He gave me a bowler who was almost inarticulate. That is the only time in my career that I just mailed it in. Didn't give a damn. So, when the hockey beat opened up I asked for it and got it. It was a good decision. The Hawks were coached at the time by Daryl Sutter, a good guy if a little sardonic. Their best players were Jeremy Roenick, Chris Chelios,and Tony Amonte, all fairly easy to get along with. Roenick, in particular, was a "go to" guy and remains so to this day. Only goalie Ed Belfour gave me any problems and that was only sporadically. Once he stopped speaking to me for weeks after I wrote a story insinuating that he and backup goalie Jeff Hackett were near-equals. Then, out of the blue, he called me at home and asked if I needed anything from him. The Blackhawks got all the way to the conference finals that year, but lost to the Red Wings in a tough series. After one more season I left The Tribune and forgot about the Blackhawks along with most of their fandom. A building which used to be alive with 20,000 screaming fans, became almost tomblike when the fans deserted them. They had not even been in the playoffs since 2002. Then last night (Monday) I realized that the Hawks were playing in the Western Conference semi-finals and had a chance to wrap up the series on home ice. I knew none of the players, but I got wrapped up in the game. The Hawks were leading 2-1 when I tuned in in the second period. Then another Chicago goal made it 3-1 and I thought it was going to be a lock. But two quick goals by Vancouver tied the game and the Canucks went ahead twice in the third period before the Blackhawks, led by their young guns, Patrick Kane and Jonathon Toews, scored three quick goals to wrap up a 7-5 victory and advance to the conference final, where they expect to play their longtime antagonists, the Red Wings. I'll know at least one of the players in that series since Chelios, who was a graybeard when I was covering more than a dozen years ago, is still performing for Detroit. I like Chelly and wish him the best, but my heart will be with the Blackhawks this time.
Like trying to decide whether to select the Porterhouse steak or the grilled veal chop for the main course--or perhaps even the char-grilled salmon--this week's sports news has provided me with an embarrassment of riches. Unlike some weeks, when I struggle to come up with a timely subject, there is no end to the possibilities.
I could, for instance, comment on the Players' championship in golf, an event which was notable not only for Henrik Stenson's superb final round on a course with greens so sun-slicked they might have been mistaken for a series of giant greased griddles, but for Tiger Woods' stunning failure to mount even the slightest challenge. Even though he entered the final round five shots behind leader Alex Cjeka, those of us who have followed Tiger's career figured the world's No.1 ranked player had Cjeka right where he wanted him--as playing partner in the final group on Sunday. Had any of us known that Cjeka, whose driving had been metronomically near perfect for three days, was going to start hitting the ball to places few humans had ever visited before and wind up shooting a 79, we'd have conceded the trophy to Woods and started channel surfing for something a little less mundane. At the very least we expected Woods to come down to the final hole with a chance to win. But it became clear from the outset that this was not Tiger's day. Or Tiger's week. Or Tiger's venue. He couldn't drive the ball in the fairway. He couldn't snuggle his iron shots close enough to the diabolically placed pins. He couldn't putt. But he still finished eighth. Think of that. This man is so good that even when he plays poorly he's a miracle shot or two away from winning. There are 150 or so players who start out each week hoping to conquer a given golf course. And every week, whether he plays well or poorly, Tiger Woods is among the top 10. I don't have the data to prove it, but I suspect no golfer ever has played to that level of consistency.
Another angle I might pursue is the revelation that Los Angeles Dodgers super star Manny Ramirez has been suspended for 50 games for failing a drug test. Ramirez reportedly took a female fertility drug and since it is unlikely that the carefree slugger is trying to get pregnant, big league officials could only conclude that he took the banned substance because it is a masking agent for steroids. It no longer surprises me when a baseball player is pinched for a drug indiscretion. Not when megastars like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez have been accused of, and in A-Rod's case confessed to, using performance enhancing drugs. I'm not completely convinced that taking steroids enhances performance all that much. For a body builder or weight lifter, yes. But no matter how juiced up a slugger is, he still has to make hard contact with a little white ball thrown by some hulking hurler who might himself be on steroids for all we know. Drugs of some sort have been around baseball almost since its infancy. I've been told, although I've never seen it, that many clubhouses had jars of "greenies" or "uppers" lying around for players to dip into. Considering the length of the season and the constant daily grind of a baseball campaign, it would be surprising if players did not look for something to get them through the dog days. What about so-called energy drinks? Should they be banned, too? Just asking.
A third intriguing story is that Kentucky Derby winning jockey Calvin Borel is giving up his ride on Mine That Bird, forfeiting an admitedly slim chance to ride a Triple Crown winner. Once it was announced that Rachel Alexandra, the filly who romped home 20 lengths ahead of the field in the Kentucky Oaks, was going to challenge the big boys in the Preakness, it would have been surprising if Borel had not decided to switch. Borel had been aboard the filly for the rocket ride in the Oaks the day before his masterly ride on Mine That Bird in the Derby and, asked which of the two horses was the better, unhesitatingly had named Rachel Alexandra. Although it was not 100 per cent guaranteed that the filly would be in the Preakness, she was the early line favorite. Fillies have won Triple Crown races before and as recently as two years ago Rags to Riches won the Preakness. The shortest of the Triple Crown events, the Preakness is probably the least likely venue to produce a calamity, although try telling that to the owners of Barbaro, who broke down at the outset of that 2007 race. Still, there is always an injury concern when a filly challenges male horses. Only last year, Eight Belles had to be destroyed after finishing second in the Kentucky Derby, but going down with two broken front ankles. But the one race that still is the elephant in the living room when it comes to boy-girl horse racing, is the fateful match race between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure in 1975. Ruffian was the Wonder Woman of horses, undefeated and winner of the Filly Triple Crown. As beloved as any race horse before or since, Ruffian was giving a good account of herself until reaching the mile pole at Belmont Park, where she broke her leg, but attempted to keep running. Emergency surgery was performed in an attempt to save her, but in the end she had to be euthanized.
But I'm not going to write any of those stories this week. Instead I'm going to concentrate on an event that has personal meaning for me. My last fulltime beat as a sports writer for The Chicago Tribune was the Blackhawks. I had been a Hawks' fan since the late forties, a time when there was so little interest in hockey in Chicago that a 13-year-old boy could go the The Stadium by himself on a game night and, when asked if he was by himself, be given a seat in the front row of the balcony, squarely on the red line. By the time I started writing for The Tribune, things had changed. Tommy Ivan had been brought in from the Detroit Red Wings to put together the team that, in 1961, would win the Stanley Cup, ironically over Ivan's former team. Although they have not won the Cup since then, by the time I started writing a column for The Tribune, the Blackhawks were the hottest thing in town, filling the Stadium nightly with their charismatic stars like Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, and goalie Glenn Hall. I got to know Hull and Mikita fairly well. Hull in particular was a dream to cover, always willing to spend time with a writer, often to the dismay of his teammates who were waiting on the bus for the Golden Jet to join them. In the old Stadium the press box was behind one goal at mezzanine level and one night Mikita rocketed a slap shot that skipped off a stick and flew into the press box, where I reflexively tried to catch it. Afterwards in the dressing room, Stan looked at me and said, "are you crazy?" It had never occurred to me that he would follow the puck all the way to its final resting place. After I was replaced as a columnist in the winter of 1978, I lost touch with hockey until one day about 15 years later I got a call at home from our sports editor, who told me to get out to The Stadium because the beat writer had some domestic problem and would not be back for awhile. And, by the way, give us a feature story for Sunday on Wayne Gretzky. So I covered the Blackhawks for the final month of that season and found out I liked it. Hockey players seemed to be more accessible and more congenial than the other athletes I had been dealing with. Besides, at the time, I was at the mercy of an assistant sports editor who kept giving me assignments that made me want to throw up. One I recall was about the Korean-American Olympics, a story that required me to head for the Korean-American enclave on Chicago's North side and throw myself on the mercy of the event's p.r. man. I asked him to get me an interview with any athlete who spoke English. He gave me a bowler who was almost inarticulate. That is the only time in my career that I just mailed it in. Didn't give a damn. So, when the hockey beat opened up I asked for it and got it. It was a good decision. The Hawks were coached at the time by Daryl Sutter, a good guy if a little sardonic. Their best players were Jeremy Roenick, Chris Chelios,and Tony Amonte, all fairly easy to get along with. Roenick, in particular, was a "go to" guy and remains so to this day. Only goalie Ed Belfour gave me any problems and that was only sporadically. Once he stopped speaking to me for weeks after I wrote a story insinuating that he and backup goalie Jeff Hackett were near-equals. Then, out of the blue, he called me at home and asked if I needed anything from him. The Blackhawks got all the way to the conference finals that year, but lost to the Red Wings in a tough series. After one more season I left The Tribune and forgot about the Blackhawks along with most of their fandom. A building which used to be alive with 20,000 screaming fans, became almost tomblike when the fans deserted them. They had not even been in the playoffs since 2002. Then last night (Monday) I realized that the Hawks were playing in the Western Conference semi-finals and had a chance to wrap up the series on home ice. I knew none of the players, but I got wrapped up in the game. The Hawks were leading 2-1 when I tuned in in the second period. Then another Chicago goal made it 3-1 and I thought it was going to be a lock. But two quick goals by Vancouver tied the game and the Canucks went ahead twice in the third period before the Blackhawks, led by their young guns, Patrick Kane and Jonathon Toews, scored three quick goals to wrap up a 7-5 victory and advance to the conference final, where they expect to play their longtime antagonists, the Red Wings. I'll know at least one of the players in that series since Chelios, who was a graybeard when I was covering more than a dozen years ago, is still performing for Detroit. I like Chelly and wish him the best, but my heart will be with the Blackhawks this time.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
By Bob Markus
What's in a name? That is the question. Having, quite neatly I think, tied together two Shakesperian soliloquys by two different characters from two different plays, I have to admit I don't know the answer. I've spent the last three days wondering what in the world his owners were thinking of when they named the 2009 Kentucky Derby winner "Mine That Bird." Surely, had they known their horse was going to become world famous one day, they'd have named it something a little more fathomable. But who knew? Certainly if you or I had any inkling that Mine That Bird was going to win the Kentucky Derby we'd have at the very least put a couple of bucks on his nose.
Most race horses' names are pretty easy to figure out. You just look at the names of the sire and the dam and find a combination that makes sense. War Admiral was the son of Man 'O War, for instance. Granted that naming a foal of Birdstone-Mining My Own is a bit of a challenge, surely they could have come up with something that makes sense. Something like Birdsong. Or Stone Mountain. Or Etched in Stone. Or Bye Bye Birdie. Or even Charlie Parker. (You jazz fans will get that one, I'm sure)
But Mine That Bird? What could it possibly mean? The only thing that springs to mind is that it is a command to send a canary into a coal mine in order to detect any toxic particles in the air. When the canary stops singing, the miners had better be looking for the fastest way out.
Mine That Bird's jockey, Calvin Borel, certainly was looking for the fastest way out when he found himself trailing the entire 19-horse field at the head of the stretch. He found it where he usually does, on the rail, and he produced one of the most astonishing finishing kicks in the history of horse racing. I'm not a racing expert. During my 36 years writing sports for the Chicago Tribune I probably covered a dozen or fewer horse races. A couple of Kentucky Derbies, one Preakness, a few Florida spring races and a handful of major stakes at Arlington Park. But it doesn't take an expert to know that what we saw Saturday was something extraordinary.
I watched the race with some friends who live downstairs from us in a condominium apartment. The scratching of I Want Revenge, the prerace favorite, had made an already cloudy picture almost unreadable, not to mention that it screwed up a lot of Derby pools. So there we were watching some horse with no name leading from the start to the head of the stretch when out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur streaking through an opening no larger than a broom closet door and passing horses left and left. It was as if Jeeves the Butler had opened the door and held it ajar for a visitor. I knew immediately that the race was over and tried to yell, "look at that horse on the rail," but by that time everyone in the room knew the horse was going to win. What none of us knew was the name of the horse.
Ebullient jockey Calvin Borel, who had won two years earlier in almost identical fashion with Street Sense, said what must have been obvious to anyone who watched the second biggest upset in Kentucky Derby history. "At the end, mine was the only horse still running," he said. Mine That Bird is a small horse as race horses go and that, explained Corel, was why he was able to glide through such a narrow opening. "He's such a small horse," Corel added, "that he just skipped along the track where I thought some of the other horses were digging into it."
The unexpected victory by the little horse that could sent racing writers, who had completely ignored Mine That Bird in the week preceding the race, scrambling for information and what they found made a pretty good yarn. The horse had been purchased for $9,500 at a yearling sale. His only two races as a 3-year-old had been run in New Mexico and he hadn't won either of them. His trainer, Benny "Chip" Woolley, had driven the gelding in a pickup truck all the way from New Mexico to Louisville, a 21-hour journey. Woolley looked as if he'd inherited his wardrobe from Johnny Cash and, after answering a few questions for a TV interviewer, stomped off the way that other Man in Black, Dale Earnhardt, once did when I asked him a question he thought was stupid.
It all made for a good story, but it was not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. True, the horse was sold as a yerling for $9,500, but the man who bought him won four races and more than $300,000 racing him in Canada, where he was proclaimed 2-year-old champion. That owner then sold him for $400,000 to two men from Roswell, N. M. The new owners entered him in the Breeder's Cup Juvenile, where he rewarded them by finishing 12th in a 12-horse field. Then came the two losses at Sunland Park, N.M. So, obviously, there was nothing to do but enter him in the most famous race in the world. It will be interesting to see what the betting odds will be at The Preakness, where the Kentucky Derby winner usually is among the favorites
and often is regarded as a potential Triple Crown winner. Mine That Bird a Triple Crown winner? Not likely. The name doesn't resonate like Whirlaway or Citation. Yet Mine That Bird's 6 3/4 length was the largest margin in the Kentucky Derby since Assault in 1946. Assault later became the seventh Triple Crown winner. So go ahead. Take a chance. Put a few bucks on the Derby winner to capture the Preakness and Belmont, too. Maybe that's the way to mine that Bird.
What's in a name? That is the question. Having, quite neatly I think, tied together two Shakesperian soliloquys by two different characters from two different plays, I have to admit I don't know the answer. I've spent the last three days wondering what in the world his owners were thinking of when they named the 2009 Kentucky Derby winner "Mine That Bird." Surely, had they known their horse was going to become world famous one day, they'd have named it something a little more fathomable. But who knew? Certainly if you or I had any inkling that Mine That Bird was going to win the Kentucky Derby we'd have at the very least put a couple of bucks on his nose.
Most race horses' names are pretty easy to figure out. You just look at the names of the sire and the dam and find a combination that makes sense. War Admiral was the son of Man 'O War, for instance. Granted that naming a foal of Birdstone-Mining My Own is a bit of a challenge, surely they could have come up with something that makes sense. Something like Birdsong. Or Stone Mountain. Or Etched in Stone. Or Bye Bye Birdie. Or even Charlie Parker. (You jazz fans will get that one, I'm sure)
But Mine That Bird? What could it possibly mean? The only thing that springs to mind is that it is a command to send a canary into a coal mine in order to detect any toxic particles in the air. When the canary stops singing, the miners had better be looking for the fastest way out.
Mine That Bird's jockey, Calvin Borel, certainly was looking for the fastest way out when he found himself trailing the entire 19-horse field at the head of the stretch. He found it where he usually does, on the rail, and he produced one of the most astonishing finishing kicks in the history of horse racing. I'm not a racing expert. During my 36 years writing sports for the Chicago Tribune I probably covered a dozen or fewer horse races. A couple of Kentucky Derbies, one Preakness, a few Florida spring races and a handful of major stakes at Arlington Park. But it doesn't take an expert to know that what we saw Saturday was something extraordinary.
I watched the race with some friends who live downstairs from us in a condominium apartment. The scratching of I Want Revenge, the prerace favorite, had made an already cloudy picture almost unreadable, not to mention that it screwed up a lot of Derby pools. So there we were watching some horse with no name leading from the start to the head of the stretch when out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur streaking through an opening no larger than a broom closet door and passing horses left and left. It was as if Jeeves the Butler had opened the door and held it ajar for a visitor. I knew immediately that the race was over and tried to yell, "look at that horse on the rail," but by that time everyone in the room knew the horse was going to win. What none of us knew was the name of the horse.
Ebullient jockey Calvin Borel, who had won two years earlier in almost identical fashion with Street Sense, said what must have been obvious to anyone who watched the second biggest upset in Kentucky Derby history. "At the end, mine was the only horse still running," he said. Mine That Bird is a small horse as race horses go and that, explained Corel, was why he was able to glide through such a narrow opening. "He's such a small horse," Corel added, "that he just skipped along the track where I thought some of the other horses were digging into it."
The unexpected victory by the little horse that could sent racing writers, who had completely ignored Mine That Bird in the week preceding the race, scrambling for information and what they found made a pretty good yarn. The horse had been purchased for $9,500 at a yearling sale. His only two races as a 3-year-old had been run in New Mexico and he hadn't won either of them. His trainer, Benny "Chip" Woolley, had driven the gelding in a pickup truck all the way from New Mexico to Louisville, a 21-hour journey. Woolley looked as if he'd inherited his wardrobe from Johnny Cash and, after answering a few questions for a TV interviewer, stomped off the way that other Man in Black, Dale Earnhardt, once did when I asked him a question he thought was stupid.
It all made for a good story, but it was not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. True, the horse was sold as a yerling for $9,500, but the man who bought him won four races and more than $300,000 racing him in Canada, where he was proclaimed 2-year-old champion. That owner then sold him for $400,000 to two men from Roswell, N. M. The new owners entered him in the Breeder's Cup Juvenile, where he rewarded them by finishing 12th in a 12-horse field. Then came the two losses at Sunland Park, N.M. So, obviously, there was nothing to do but enter him in the most famous race in the world. It will be interesting to see what the betting odds will be at The Preakness, where the Kentucky Derby winner usually is among the favorites
and often is regarded as a potential Triple Crown winner. Mine That Bird a Triple Crown winner? Not likely. The name doesn't resonate like Whirlaway or Citation. Yet Mine That Bird's 6 3/4 length was the largest margin in the Kentucky Derby since Assault in 1946. Assault later became the seventh Triple Crown winner. So go ahead. Take a chance. Put a few bucks on the Derby winner to capture the Preakness and Belmont, too. Maybe that's the way to mine that Bird.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
By Bob Markus
A long time ago, when I was the only guy, to my knowledge, ever to serve two years in the Army without advancing past the rank of PFC, one of my buddies was a big, good looking kid from Fresno, Cal., who had a favorite expression that never failed to amuse me. "I used to be conceited," he would say, "but now I'm perfect." Well, I used to be perfect, but now I'm embarrassed. I've been writing this weekly blog for a little more than a year and, to my knowledge, have not made any factual errors. Errors in judgment? Plenty. Big Brown to win the Triple Crown, comes to mind. The Arizona Cardinals to win the Super Bowl. Memphis to win the NCAA tournament.
I haven't had much feedback from readers, but the few who have responded to a column or two have generally been kind. But last week a reader with the moniker T.J. sent a reply to my blog announcing my new born fealty to the Miami Marlins after more than a half century of being a Cubs fan. "What would be worse than dying before the Cubs winning a world series?" he asked. His answer: "Swearing off the Cubs only to see them win a World Series, taking the pennant at the expense of your new favorite team." Fair enough, and I'll address that a bit later. It was the next sentence that bothered me, not that there was anything unfair about it. In fact, it was justified. "Also," T.J. wrote, "it was Will Clark, not Jack Clark whom Cubs pitchers could not retire in '89." Right you are, T.J., and wrong I was.
So I apologize not only to T.J.,but all of my readers who have the right to expect a guy who wrote for newspapers for more than 40 years to at least get his facts right. Location, location, location may be the watch word for realtors and baseball pitchers, but for a journalist the first principle is accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. After reading T.J.'s comment I did what I should have done in the first place. I looked it up in the Baseball Encyclopedia, which I consider the greatest reference book ever published, and was reminded that Jack Clark played for the Giants from 1973 to 1984 before being traded to the Cardinals, and Will Clark came up with the Giants in 1986. So it was Will Clark who had his way with the likes of Greg Maddux in that 1989 National League Championship series.
Although I recognize Maddux as a Hall of Famer and will vote for him if I'm still around when he becomes eligible in five years, I've always resented the way he left the Cubs, claiming he wanted to pitch for a team that had a chance to win the World Series. The fact is he was already on a team that had a chance to win the World Series and he was one of the main reasons they didn't. In his two playoff starts he never got into the fifth inning. In the series opening 11-3 loss he was torched for eight runs in four innings, including a Clark grand slam. He was tagged for four more runs in 3 1/3 innings in game four and didn't get the loss only because the Cubs tied the game after he left, before eventually losing, 6-4. The other thing that ticked me off was that three years later the Cubs had gone out of their way to help him reach 20 wins for the first time, giving him extra starts down the stretch. The result was his first Cy Young Award, which undoubtedly was a bargaining chip when he became a free agent after that 1992 season. Showing all the loyalty of a sea slug, Maddux signed with the Braves for the same salary the Cubs had offered.
Getting back to T.J.s message, I'm much more upset by the discovery of my factual error than I am at the prospect of the Cubs winning the World Series in the same year I jumped off the band wagon. In fact, if they get that far I'll probably root for them. I doubt they'll get that far, however, and don't much care. As for my new love, the Marlins, as the song goes, love's more comfortable the second time around. I'll probably never root for them with the passion I felt for the Cubs. But I see most of their games on television and, for the most part, I like what I see. As I write this they're on a seven-game losing streak and not much is going right for them. But they're a young team and I feel confident they'll be back in the race (in fact they were still in first place going into Tuesday night's game.) If it doesn't happen this year, I'm perfectly willing to wait until next year. Now, where have I heard that before?
A long time ago, when I was the only guy, to my knowledge, ever to serve two years in the Army without advancing past the rank of PFC, one of my buddies was a big, good looking kid from Fresno, Cal., who had a favorite expression that never failed to amuse me. "I used to be conceited," he would say, "but now I'm perfect." Well, I used to be perfect, but now I'm embarrassed. I've been writing this weekly blog for a little more than a year and, to my knowledge, have not made any factual errors. Errors in judgment? Plenty. Big Brown to win the Triple Crown, comes to mind. The Arizona Cardinals to win the Super Bowl. Memphis to win the NCAA tournament.
I haven't had much feedback from readers, but the few who have responded to a column or two have generally been kind. But last week a reader with the moniker T.J. sent a reply to my blog announcing my new born fealty to the Miami Marlins after more than a half century of being a Cubs fan. "What would be worse than dying before the Cubs winning a world series?" he asked. His answer: "Swearing off the Cubs only to see them win a World Series, taking the pennant at the expense of your new favorite team." Fair enough, and I'll address that a bit later. It was the next sentence that bothered me, not that there was anything unfair about it. In fact, it was justified. "Also," T.J. wrote, "it was Will Clark, not Jack Clark whom Cubs pitchers could not retire in '89." Right you are, T.J., and wrong I was.
So I apologize not only to T.J.,but all of my readers who have the right to expect a guy who wrote for newspapers for more than 40 years to at least get his facts right. Location, location, location may be the watch word for realtors and baseball pitchers, but for a journalist the first principle is accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. After reading T.J.'s comment I did what I should have done in the first place. I looked it up in the Baseball Encyclopedia, which I consider the greatest reference book ever published, and was reminded that Jack Clark played for the Giants from 1973 to 1984 before being traded to the Cardinals, and Will Clark came up with the Giants in 1986. So it was Will Clark who had his way with the likes of Greg Maddux in that 1989 National League Championship series.
Although I recognize Maddux as a Hall of Famer and will vote for him if I'm still around when he becomes eligible in five years, I've always resented the way he left the Cubs, claiming he wanted to pitch for a team that had a chance to win the World Series. The fact is he was already on a team that had a chance to win the World Series and he was one of the main reasons they didn't. In his two playoff starts he never got into the fifth inning. In the series opening 11-3 loss he was torched for eight runs in four innings, including a Clark grand slam. He was tagged for four more runs in 3 1/3 innings in game four and didn't get the loss only because the Cubs tied the game after he left, before eventually losing, 6-4. The other thing that ticked me off was that three years later the Cubs had gone out of their way to help him reach 20 wins for the first time, giving him extra starts down the stretch. The result was his first Cy Young Award, which undoubtedly was a bargaining chip when he became a free agent after that 1992 season. Showing all the loyalty of a sea slug, Maddux signed with the Braves for the same salary the Cubs had offered.
Getting back to T.J.s message, I'm much more upset by the discovery of my factual error than I am at the prospect of the Cubs winning the World Series in the same year I jumped off the band wagon. In fact, if they get that far I'll probably root for them. I doubt they'll get that far, however, and don't much care. As for my new love, the Marlins, as the song goes, love's more comfortable the second time around. I'll probably never root for them with the passion I felt for the Cubs. But I see most of their games on television and, for the most part, I like what I see. As I write this they're on a seven-game losing streak and not much is going right for them. But they're a young team and I feel confident they'll be back in the race (in fact they were still in first place going into Tuesday night's game.) If it doesn't happen this year, I'm perfectly willing to wait until next year. Now, where have I heard that before?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
By Bob Markus
Next year could be here at last. Wait until next year has long been the rallying cry of diehard Cubs' fans. They've been saying it for 100 years. I used to be one of them. For nearly 70 years, ever since I was old enough to say "Stan Hack" or "Bill Nicholson," I was a Cubs' fan. I believed in next year. I thought 1969 was next year, but then, perhaps the best Cubs team ever--there are three Hall of Famers from that team and Ron Santo should be a fourth--blew an 8 1/2 game lead in September. Next year seemed a long way off then, but 15 years later, in 1984 , a year that turned out to be more horrible than George Orwell ever could have imagined, the long wait appeared to be over. The Cubs had a 2-0 lead over the San Diego Padres in the National League championship series and no team had ever lost under those circumstances. Of course, the Cubs had never been in the championship series before. A Steve Garvey walkoff homer in Game Four, a ground ball through the wicket of first baseman Leon Durham in Game Five and it was. . . . .drumroll please. . . .WAIT TIL NEXT YEAR!
The next years kept coming. 1989. Mark Grace bats .647 for the Cubs but Jack Clark hits at a .650 clip for the San Francisco Giants, who win the series , 4-1. Footnote to history: Had the Cubs won that series, the third game of the World Series would have been played on schedule in Wrigley Field and the earthquake that rocked San Francisco minutes before the scheduled game would have been a local event, not the national sensation it became. 2003. Surely this was the next year we Cubs fans had so long awaited. Leading the Florida Marlins three games to one, just one more win away from their first world series appearance in 58 years, and ....aw, what the heck, you know what happened next. The Cubs didn't even have the grace to take the blame for that choke job. Instead a fan named Steve Bartman took the fall even though there wasn't a chance in hell Moises Alou would have caught the foul ball that Bartman "stole" from him. I should have known right then that next year was just a myth, no more real than the Easter bunny, but against all the evidence I still believed.
Then came last October's shameful three-game meltdown against the Los Angeles Dodgers in a series the Cubs were favored to win. There were no redeeming moments for the Cubs in that series, not one. At long last, as a onetime copy desk colleague at the Chicago Tribune used to say, the scales fell from my eyes. There is no next year. But wait a minute. I think next year might be here, after all. Not for the Cubs, but for my new favorite team, the Florida Marlins. Ever since I moved to South Florida in 1998, I've followed the Marlins, rooting for them--except when they played the Cubs. Now they have my absolute loyalty. Unlike the underachieing Cubs, the Marlins have a habit of playing beyond their supposed capabilities. This was apparent to me long before they got off to an 11-1 start this season, winning the last three games in that streak after trailing in the ninth inning each time. No team in baseball history had done that in a three-game series and so what if it was against the Washington Nationals.
The Marlins have been confounding the experts for years. They've won two world championships in the last dozen years without ever winning a division title. They are the only team in major league history that has never lost a playoff series. Of course, it's way too early to predict the Marlins will make the playoffs this year, but if they do, put your money on them. And they have a chance. Their five-man rotation, once Andrew Miller gets healthy, is among the best in baseball, although few outside the state of Florida could name even one of them. In shortstop Hanley Ramirez they have a true super star and second baseman Dan Uggla, whose name pretty well reflects the way he plays defense, is nevertheless a clutch hitter sho regularly bangs out 30 homers and 90 r.b.i.s. They have an outfield featuring three center fielders. One of them, Cameron Maybin, who came from the Tigers in the Miguel Cabrera-Dontrelle Willis trade, has yet to hit his stride, but he will. All the baseball scouts say so. Jeremy Hermida, who was Cameron Maybin before there was a Cameron Maybin, is finally showing what all the fuss was about. In one of those comeback wins in Washington last week-end Hermida tied the game in the ninth with a two-run homer and won it in the 11th with a three-run blast. The third outfielder, Cody Ross tied Sunday's game with an eighth inning homer, then, after the Marlins fell behind by a run going into the ninth, doubled in the decisive three runs in a 7-4 victory.
I've been aware of the Marlins since before they played their first game. I covered their organizational meeting and interviewed owner Wayne Huizenga before they made Catcher Charles Johnson their first draft pick, before Charlie Hough pitched them to a victory in their first game in 1993, before they traded future Hall-of-Fame reliever Trevor Hoffman for outfielder Gary Sheffield a few weeks later. Since then, stars have come and quickly gone, and fans, who came in droves that first season, have mostly only gone. In a way you can't blame them. The team has gone through three ownerships in its relatively brief existence. After each of its world championship seasons there has been a fire sale of top players. Huizenga's dismantling job after the 1997 World Series win was particularly brutal and the following year the team lost 108 games and most of its fandom. It also lost manager Jim Leyland, who I've known ever since he first stepped onto a major league field with the Chicago White Sox. He was the third base coach for Manager Tony LaRussa and quickly endeared himself to the Chicago media. Third base coaches usually fly under the radar unless they do something wrong. In one of his first games with the White Sox, Leyland sent a runner home to almost certain death and the Sox lost the game by a run . Afterwards, Leyland manned up and admitted he made a mistake. After that he could do no wrong and in fact did very little wrong through the years. So I was rooting for the Marlins when they won under Leyland in 1997.
When the Marlins won again in 2003, of course, I was rooting for the Cubs. Now, I still follow the Cubs on their cable network and usually go to at least one game when I go back to Chicago in the summer. But my passion for them has turned cold, cold as a January day on Michigan avenue. I'm a Marlins fan, now, baby, and I think I've finally got a chance to see next year. Maybe it won't be this year, but next year. . . . .go Marlins.
Next year could be here at last. Wait until next year has long been the rallying cry of diehard Cubs' fans. They've been saying it for 100 years. I used to be one of them. For nearly 70 years, ever since I was old enough to say "Stan Hack" or "Bill Nicholson," I was a Cubs' fan. I believed in next year. I thought 1969 was next year, but then, perhaps the best Cubs team ever--there are three Hall of Famers from that team and Ron Santo should be a fourth--blew an 8 1/2 game lead in September. Next year seemed a long way off then, but 15 years later, in 1984 , a year that turned out to be more horrible than George Orwell ever could have imagined, the long wait appeared to be over. The Cubs had a 2-0 lead over the San Diego Padres in the National League championship series and no team had ever lost under those circumstances. Of course, the Cubs had never been in the championship series before. A Steve Garvey walkoff homer in Game Four, a ground ball through the wicket of first baseman Leon Durham in Game Five and it was. . . . .drumroll please. . . .WAIT TIL NEXT YEAR!
The next years kept coming. 1989. Mark Grace bats .647 for the Cubs but Jack Clark hits at a .650 clip for the San Francisco Giants, who win the series , 4-1. Footnote to history: Had the Cubs won that series, the third game of the World Series would have been played on schedule in Wrigley Field and the earthquake that rocked San Francisco minutes before the scheduled game would have been a local event, not the national sensation it became. 2003. Surely this was the next year we Cubs fans had so long awaited. Leading the Florida Marlins three games to one, just one more win away from their first world series appearance in 58 years, and ....aw, what the heck, you know what happened next. The Cubs didn't even have the grace to take the blame for that choke job. Instead a fan named Steve Bartman took the fall even though there wasn't a chance in hell Moises Alou would have caught the foul ball that Bartman "stole" from him. I should have known right then that next year was just a myth, no more real than the Easter bunny, but against all the evidence I still believed.
Then came last October's shameful three-game meltdown against the Los Angeles Dodgers in a series the Cubs were favored to win. There were no redeeming moments for the Cubs in that series, not one. At long last, as a onetime copy desk colleague at the Chicago Tribune used to say, the scales fell from my eyes. There is no next year. But wait a minute. I think next year might be here, after all. Not for the Cubs, but for my new favorite team, the Florida Marlins. Ever since I moved to South Florida in 1998, I've followed the Marlins, rooting for them--except when they played the Cubs. Now they have my absolute loyalty. Unlike the underachieing Cubs, the Marlins have a habit of playing beyond their supposed capabilities. This was apparent to me long before they got off to an 11-1 start this season, winning the last three games in that streak after trailing in the ninth inning each time. No team in baseball history had done that in a three-game series and so what if it was against the Washington Nationals.
The Marlins have been confounding the experts for years. They've won two world championships in the last dozen years without ever winning a division title. They are the only team in major league history that has never lost a playoff series. Of course, it's way too early to predict the Marlins will make the playoffs this year, but if they do, put your money on them. And they have a chance. Their five-man rotation, once Andrew Miller gets healthy, is among the best in baseball, although few outside the state of Florida could name even one of them. In shortstop Hanley Ramirez they have a true super star and second baseman Dan Uggla, whose name pretty well reflects the way he plays defense, is nevertheless a clutch hitter sho regularly bangs out 30 homers and 90 r.b.i.s. They have an outfield featuring three center fielders. One of them, Cameron Maybin, who came from the Tigers in the Miguel Cabrera-Dontrelle Willis trade, has yet to hit his stride, but he will. All the baseball scouts say so. Jeremy Hermida, who was Cameron Maybin before there was a Cameron Maybin, is finally showing what all the fuss was about. In one of those comeback wins in Washington last week-end Hermida tied the game in the ninth with a two-run homer and won it in the 11th with a three-run blast. The third outfielder, Cody Ross tied Sunday's game with an eighth inning homer, then, after the Marlins fell behind by a run going into the ninth, doubled in the decisive three runs in a 7-4 victory.
I've been aware of the Marlins since before they played their first game. I covered their organizational meeting and interviewed owner Wayne Huizenga before they made Catcher Charles Johnson their first draft pick, before Charlie Hough pitched them to a victory in their first game in 1993, before they traded future Hall-of-Fame reliever Trevor Hoffman for outfielder Gary Sheffield a few weeks later. Since then, stars have come and quickly gone, and fans, who came in droves that first season, have mostly only gone. In a way you can't blame them. The team has gone through three ownerships in its relatively brief existence. After each of its world championship seasons there has been a fire sale of top players. Huizenga's dismantling job after the 1997 World Series win was particularly brutal and the following year the team lost 108 games and most of its fandom. It also lost manager Jim Leyland, who I've known ever since he first stepped onto a major league field with the Chicago White Sox. He was the third base coach for Manager Tony LaRussa and quickly endeared himself to the Chicago media. Third base coaches usually fly under the radar unless they do something wrong. In one of his first games with the White Sox, Leyland sent a runner home to almost certain death and the Sox lost the game by a run . Afterwards, Leyland manned up and admitted he made a mistake. After that he could do no wrong and in fact did very little wrong through the years. So I was rooting for the Marlins when they won under Leyland in 1997.
When the Marlins won again in 2003, of course, I was rooting for the Cubs. Now, I still follow the Cubs on their cable network and usually go to at least one game when I go back to Chicago in the summer. But my passion for them has turned cold, cold as a January day on Michigan avenue. I'm a Marlins fan, now, baby, and I think I've finally got a chance to see next year. Maybe it won't be this year, but next year. . . . .go Marlins.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
By Bob Markus
They say that history is written by the winners. Sometimes it is rewritten by the losers. And sometimes it is difficult to determine which was which. That certainly is the case with "Thrilla in Manila," a new HBO documentary about the savage end game, the brutal final act of their three act play, played out with cosmic consequences by Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Written almost entirely from Frazier's perspective--Ali appears only in film clips--it is a story steeped in bitterness and hatred, emotions apparently so deeply implanted in Frazier's brain it's a wonder he has managed to keep them even marginally at bay.
To be sure, Frazier has good reason to despise Ali. Ali is almost universally loved. Frazier, Ali's near equal as a fighter, is universally ignored. During the totality of their respective careers, Ali has publicly ridiculed Smokin' Joe, calling him everything from an Uncle Tom, before their epic first fight, in Madison Square Garden, to a gorilla, while preparing for the apocalyptical third fight, in Manila, the ultimate result of which left Ali a stumbling, mumbling shell of a man and Frazier not much better off. Ali has tried to apologize to Frazier, pointing out that he was merely trying to hype the show and I, for one, believe him. I spent a considerable amount of time with Ali in his heyday and while there sometimes was a mean streak behind that poetry-sprouting ebullience, there was also a boyish exuberance that let you know he really didn't mean it. Perhaps the exception came in his title unification fight with Ernie Terrell in Houston in 1967. Terrell had refused to call Ali by his Muslim name, referring to him as (Clay). While administering a savage beating to the outclassed Terrell, Ali accompamnied each salvo with a taunting, "What's my name?" Terrell was not the only one who balked at calling Ali by his new name. I was not the only writer who was conflicted and I at first always skirted the issue by calling him "Champ" and he never seemed to object or even notice.
When Ali fought there was no need for a publicity director and it was he who coined the phrase "Thrilla in Manila." While doing so he also got in the "gorilla" epithet that so outraged Frazier. Upon arriving in The Philippines, Ali announced "It'll be a thrilla and a killa, and a chilla when I get the gorilla in Manila." Gorilla, of course, was a pejorative for a black man and Ali was never loath to play the race card, even when his opponent was another African American.
Before the first fight, Ali threw the Uncle Tom gambit at Frazier and said that any black man who rooted for Joe was also an Uncle Tom. After Frazier won the decision in one of the great fights of all time, Ali was gracious in the immediate aftermath but later called it a "white man's decision."
I covered the first fight in New York and whenever anyone asks me what was my alltime favorite event I always say there are three and the first Frazier-Ali fight is one. (I'll keep you in suspense for awhile about the other two). My prefight assignment was to cover Frazier's workouts in Philadelphia in a tiny gym across the street from Philadelphia's 30th Street station. I was staying in New York and commuting daily on Amtrak. It was quite convenient. Frazier wasn't available that often, so I did one column on a sparring partner, who was articulate and forthcoming on what it was like to fight a brawler like Frazier. His name was Ken Norton.
Earlier, while covering the Super Bowl in Miami I had visited Ali's training camp and, thanks to the intervention of Angelo Dundee, gotten an exclusive interview with Ali. He astonished me by confessing that he was afraid every time he stepped into the ring, not that he would get hurt, but that he would somehow lose and destroy the aura of invincibility he had so meticulously created. Of course it was not the first time I had a one-on-one with Ali. During the time he was barred from fighting after refusing to join the army, he was living in Chicago in the south side home of Herbert Muhammad, son of the Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad. We were talking about the fact that white America almost universally despised him, when he remarked that in the rest of the world the opposite was true. He then went to a closet and dragged out a huge suitcase, which he opened and began pawing through the contents. There were letters, hundreds of letters, in his treasure trove and like King Midas counting his gold he began throwing them in the air and exclaiming: "They love me; my people love me." If I learned one thing about Ali, it was this: If you ever begin to think you know him, think again. You don't."
Because I was there, I always wanted to believe that the first Ali-Frazier fight was the greatest heavyweight bout of all time. But honesty compels me to admit that the Thrilla in Manila was better. I wish the HBO film had showed the fight in its entirety. With its palpable bias towrd Frazier, I'm not certain what might have been left out. The impression left by the movie was that Ali was ready to quit after the 14th round, but Frazier's trainer, Eddie Futch threw in the towel first. It is true that Frazier appeared to be begging to continue and George Benton, only suruvor among Joe's cornermen that night, insists that he, too, argued in favor of continuing. Years later, Futch was asked why he had stopped the fight and he had replied, "because I've seen eight men die in the ring."
What is more debatable is the contention that before Futch made the decision, Ali could be heard yelling at Dundee, "Angelo, cut off my gloves," indicting he was ready to quit himself. There is, of course, the precedence of Dundee having to push the near-blinded Ali (then still Cassius Clay) into the ring with Sonny Liston after Clay was ready to quit because a caustic substance in his eyes made it difficult for him to see The Big Ugly Bear.
The Thrilla in Manila took a dreadful personal toll on both fighters, although Ali would go on to lose and then regain his heavyweight championship against Leon Spinks and take a dreadful drubbing from Larry Holmes, who makes a singular appearance in the documentary. "Ali was over-rated as a boxer," said Holmes. I always thought Holmes was underrated as a heavyweight champion, but Larry never fought Ali in his prime. "I'm so pretty," Ali used to say of himself and he was, both in form and movement. Having known him then it is difficult seeing him the way he is now. Unless you're Joe Frazier, whose bitterness is abiding and almost overwhelming. "I did that to him," he crows. "Whatever you do as a young man comes back to bite you on the butt. God marks it down."
They say that history is written by the winners. Sometimes it is rewritten by the losers. And sometimes it is difficult to determine which was which. That certainly is the case with "Thrilla in Manila," a new HBO documentary about the savage end game, the brutal final act of their three act play, played out with cosmic consequences by Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Written almost entirely from Frazier's perspective--Ali appears only in film clips--it is a story steeped in bitterness and hatred, emotions apparently so deeply implanted in Frazier's brain it's a wonder he has managed to keep them even marginally at bay.
To be sure, Frazier has good reason to despise Ali. Ali is almost universally loved. Frazier, Ali's near equal as a fighter, is universally ignored. During the totality of their respective careers, Ali has publicly ridiculed Smokin' Joe, calling him everything from an Uncle Tom, before their epic first fight, in Madison Square Garden, to a gorilla, while preparing for the apocalyptical third fight, in Manila, the ultimate result of which left Ali a stumbling, mumbling shell of a man and Frazier not much better off. Ali has tried to apologize to Frazier, pointing out that he was merely trying to hype the show and I, for one, believe him. I spent a considerable amount of time with Ali in his heyday and while there sometimes was a mean streak behind that poetry-sprouting ebullience, there was also a boyish exuberance that let you know he really didn't mean it. Perhaps the exception came in his title unification fight with Ernie Terrell in Houston in 1967. Terrell had refused to call Ali by his Muslim name, referring to him as (Clay). While administering a savage beating to the outclassed Terrell, Ali accompamnied each salvo with a taunting, "What's my name?" Terrell was not the only one who balked at calling Ali by his new name. I was not the only writer who was conflicted and I at first always skirted the issue by calling him "Champ" and he never seemed to object or even notice.
When Ali fought there was no need for a publicity director and it was he who coined the phrase "Thrilla in Manila." While doing so he also got in the "gorilla" epithet that so outraged Frazier. Upon arriving in The Philippines, Ali announced "It'll be a thrilla and a killa, and a chilla when I get the gorilla in Manila." Gorilla, of course, was a pejorative for a black man and Ali was never loath to play the race card, even when his opponent was another African American.
Before the first fight, Ali threw the Uncle Tom gambit at Frazier and said that any black man who rooted for Joe was also an Uncle Tom. After Frazier won the decision in one of the great fights of all time, Ali was gracious in the immediate aftermath but later called it a "white man's decision."
I covered the first fight in New York and whenever anyone asks me what was my alltime favorite event I always say there are three and the first Frazier-Ali fight is one. (I'll keep you in suspense for awhile about the other two). My prefight assignment was to cover Frazier's workouts in Philadelphia in a tiny gym across the street from Philadelphia's 30th Street station. I was staying in New York and commuting daily on Amtrak. It was quite convenient. Frazier wasn't available that often, so I did one column on a sparring partner, who was articulate and forthcoming on what it was like to fight a brawler like Frazier. His name was Ken Norton.
Earlier, while covering the Super Bowl in Miami I had visited Ali's training camp and, thanks to the intervention of Angelo Dundee, gotten an exclusive interview with Ali. He astonished me by confessing that he was afraid every time he stepped into the ring, not that he would get hurt, but that he would somehow lose and destroy the aura of invincibility he had so meticulously created. Of course it was not the first time I had a one-on-one with Ali. During the time he was barred from fighting after refusing to join the army, he was living in Chicago in the south side home of Herbert Muhammad, son of the Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad. We were talking about the fact that white America almost universally despised him, when he remarked that in the rest of the world the opposite was true. He then went to a closet and dragged out a huge suitcase, which he opened and began pawing through the contents. There were letters, hundreds of letters, in his treasure trove and like King Midas counting his gold he began throwing them in the air and exclaiming: "They love me; my people love me." If I learned one thing about Ali, it was this: If you ever begin to think you know him, think again. You don't."
Because I was there, I always wanted to believe that the first Ali-Frazier fight was the greatest heavyweight bout of all time. But honesty compels me to admit that the Thrilla in Manila was better. I wish the HBO film had showed the fight in its entirety. With its palpable bias towrd Frazier, I'm not certain what might have been left out. The impression left by the movie was that Ali was ready to quit after the 14th round, but Frazier's trainer, Eddie Futch threw in the towel first. It is true that Frazier appeared to be begging to continue and George Benton, only suruvor among Joe's cornermen that night, insists that he, too, argued in favor of continuing. Years later, Futch was asked why he had stopped the fight and he had replied, "because I've seen eight men die in the ring."
What is more debatable is the contention that before Futch made the decision, Ali could be heard yelling at Dundee, "Angelo, cut off my gloves," indicting he was ready to quit himself. There is, of course, the precedence of Dundee having to push the near-blinded Ali (then still Cassius Clay) into the ring with Sonny Liston after Clay was ready to quit because a caustic substance in his eyes made it difficult for him to see The Big Ugly Bear.
The Thrilla in Manila took a dreadful personal toll on both fighters, although Ali would go on to lose and then regain his heavyweight championship against Leon Spinks and take a dreadful drubbing from Larry Holmes, who makes a singular appearance in the documentary. "Ali was over-rated as a boxer," said Holmes. I always thought Holmes was underrated as a heavyweight champion, but Larry never fought Ali in his prime. "I'm so pretty," Ali used to say of himself and he was, both in form and movement. Having known him then it is difficult seeing him the way he is now. Unless you're Joe Frazier, whose bitterness is abiding and almost overwhelming. "I did that to him," he crows. "Whatever you do as a young man comes back to bite you on the butt. God marks it down."
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
By Bob Markus
Baseball is still America's pastime. Always was. Always will be. Pro football's Super Bowl may draw the largest world-wide audience on a single day, but baseball, with its endless summer, is still more deeply imbedded in the soul of our nation. Nobody ever wrote the lyric "Where Have You Gone, John Unitas," or a book called "The Boys of Autumn." There is something about baseball, the timeless, balletic beauty of a well-turned double play, the eternal cat-and-mouse game of the pitcher vs. batter, the ear-splitting C-R-A-A-C-K that signals a ball struck with authority--a homer for sure--as well as the hollow T-H-U-U-M-P of a 100-mile-an hour fastball as it smacks into the catcher's mitt--STRIKE THREE, YER OUT--that no other sport can match.
The baseball beat is still the most coveted on every major newspaper in every major league town, unless it be South Florida, where I currently live, paying for the right to wear shorts in January with the short shrift given to the Marlins--who have won two world championships during a stretch where the beloved and much favored Dolphins have won none. Here, a torn toe nail suffered by the backup quarterback trumps a grand slam homer by Hanley Ramirez any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Too bad, because the Marlins have put together an exciting young team and deserve better.
Having covered every major beat--except the Bulls--over a 36-year career at the Chicago Tribune, I can tell you that the baseball beat is by far the most challenging and, consequently, the most satisfying. There is nothing more shattering than the dreaded midnight call from the office informing you that the Sun-Times has just reported that the baseball strike is over and where were you at (Marvin) Miller time? There is nothing more exhilerating than pushing the send button on a story that you know is going to pay back the Sun Times beat guy in hearts as well as spades. One such opportunity came one Sunday afternoon in Oakland, where White Sox manager Tony LaRussa approached me and said, "I've been watching you and I like the way you work, so I'm going to give you a story." He then proceeded to tell me that he was putting starter Richard Dotson in the bullpen as the closer for the second half of the season. Lamarr Hoyt would take his place in the rotation. I interviewed Dotson and Hoyt for their reactions and filed my story before the start of a scheduled double header, smugly noticing that the Sun Times beat man had yet to show up at the ball park. It wasn't until I got back to Chicago that I found out the geniuses on the copy desk had thrown the story out after one edition and didn't even have the sense to include it in the White Sox Notes.
Covering baseball is a 24-7 job that starts on the first day of spring training and ends never. Once, covering the Cubs, I spent a week of my vacation in Orlando Cepeda's house in Puerto Rico, while collaborating with Orlando on his autobiography. One day a headline in the Spanish language newspaper caught my eye and although my Spanish is limited I was able to decipher that the Cubs had just acquired pitcher Steve Trout in a trade with the White Sox. Very interesting, I thought, and went back to watching Cepeda sleep while I waited to continue our interview. When I got back home and made one of my infrequent visits to the office I was chastized for not reporting in on the Trout story. The only beat that comes close to baseball for degree of difficulty is the Indianapolis 500 and that lasts only for three weeks.
While many sports fans were looking forward to Monday's NCAA championship game, I was eagerly anticipating the opening of the baseball season. I got into the baseball mood a few weeks ago as I was checking out some groceries in the neighborhood Publix. While waiting for the woman in front of me to pay for a pile of groceries that would have fed the entire population of Ft. Lauderdale for a week, I noticed on the magazine rack a picture of Albert Pujols on the cover of a paper-back-book sized volume. It was the 2009 Who's Who in Baseball and it brought back all sorts of memories. As a boy I used to get each year's new edition and go through it avidly. I don't remember how much it cost, but I'd guess 50 cents. I noticed that the current price is $9.95. Should I or shouldn't I? I did.
I have to admit that, until I sat down to write today's blog I hadn't looked at it much. I probably won't look at it much in the future, but it is still a fine reference work and will serve as a bridge between my 1995 edition of the Baseball Enclopedia and today's players. In my cursory inspection of Who's Who I quickly found one item of at least mild interest. Red Sox pitcher John Smoltz, who has been pitching professionally since 1986, has spent only one year in a northern city--1987, in Glens Falls, N.Y., when he was a Detroit Tigers farm hand. He was traded near the end of that season to the Atlanta braves for pitcher Doyle Alexander and spent the rest of that year, and the beginning of 1988, in Richmond, the Braves' Triple A affiliate. The rest of his sure-to-be Hall of Fame career has been in Atlanta. Now he's with the Red Sox, about as far north as you can get and still be in the United States.
Who's Who has been around for nearly a century and it has changed somewhat. A friend of mine has a 1933 copy (for which he could get $85 if it were in mint condition--it isn't--and if he wanted to sell it--he doesn't.) Back then, the Who's Who was more than a compendium of major league players' stats. In addition to listing each player's baseball numbers, the 1933 Who's Who listed home addresses. So if you wanted to write to Babe Ruth, or even visit him, you could go to 345 W. 88th St., NYC and have a beer with The Babe. Lou Gehrig's address was listed as 9 Meadow Ln., New Rochelle, NY. Outfielder Mule Haas, who hit 305 the previous year for the Philadelphia Athletics and was about to be traded to the Chicago White Sox, could be reached at 109 Valley Rd., in Montclair, N.J., the city where he was born.
In addition to players, the 1933 edition listed managers, coaches, umpires, even baseball beat writers and sports editors. Among the latter was Arch Ward, who once was sports editor of the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, and later, more famously, sports editor of the Chicago Tribune. In the latter capacity he would one day interview me for a job on The Tribune sports desk. I didn't get it. But that is a story for another day.
Baseball is still America's pastime. Always was. Always will be. Pro football's Super Bowl may draw the largest world-wide audience on a single day, but baseball, with its endless summer, is still more deeply imbedded in the soul of our nation. Nobody ever wrote the lyric "Where Have You Gone, John Unitas," or a book called "The Boys of Autumn." There is something about baseball, the timeless, balletic beauty of a well-turned double play, the eternal cat-and-mouse game of the pitcher vs. batter, the ear-splitting C-R-A-A-C-K that signals a ball struck with authority--a homer for sure--as well as the hollow T-H-U-U-M-P of a 100-mile-an hour fastball as it smacks into the catcher's mitt--STRIKE THREE, YER OUT--that no other sport can match.
The baseball beat is still the most coveted on every major newspaper in every major league town, unless it be South Florida, where I currently live, paying for the right to wear shorts in January with the short shrift given to the Marlins--who have won two world championships during a stretch where the beloved and much favored Dolphins have won none. Here, a torn toe nail suffered by the backup quarterback trumps a grand slam homer by Hanley Ramirez any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Too bad, because the Marlins have put together an exciting young team and deserve better.
Having covered every major beat--except the Bulls--over a 36-year career at the Chicago Tribune, I can tell you that the baseball beat is by far the most challenging and, consequently, the most satisfying. There is nothing more shattering than the dreaded midnight call from the office informing you that the Sun-Times has just reported that the baseball strike is over and where were you at (Marvin) Miller time? There is nothing more exhilerating than pushing the send button on a story that you know is going to pay back the Sun Times beat guy in hearts as well as spades. One such opportunity came one Sunday afternoon in Oakland, where White Sox manager Tony LaRussa approached me and said, "I've been watching you and I like the way you work, so I'm going to give you a story." He then proceeded to tell me that he was putting starter Richard Dotson in the bullpen as the closer for the second half of the season. Lamarr Hoyt would take his place in the rotation. I interviewed Dotson and Hoyt for their reactions and filed my story before the start of a scheduled double header, smugly noticing that the Sun Times beat man had yet to show up at the ball park. It wasn't until I got back to Chicago that I found out the geniuses on the copy desk had thrown the story out after one edition and didn't even have the sense to include it in the White Sox Notes.
Covering baseball is a 24-7 job that starts on the first day of spring training and ends never. Once, covering the Cubs, I spent a week of my vacation in Orlando Cepeda's house in Puerto Rico, while collaborating with Orlando on his autobiography. One day a headline in the Spanish language newspaper caught my eye and although my Spanish is limited I was able to decipher that the Cubs had just acquired pitcher Steve Trout in a trade with the White Sox. Very interesting, I thought, and went back to watching Cepeda sleep while I waited to continue our interview. When I got back home and made one of my infrequent visits to the office I was chastized for not reporting in on the Trout story. The only beat that comes close to baseball for degree of difficulty is the Indianapolis 500 and that lasts only for three weeks.
While many sports fans were looking forward to Monday's NCAA championship game, I was eagerly anticipating the opening of the baseball season. I got into the baseball mood a few weeks ago as I was checking out some groceries in the neighborhood Publix. While waiting for the woman in front of me to pay for a pile of groceries that would have fed the entire population of Ft. Lauderdale for a week, I noticed on the magazine rack a picture of Albert Pujols on the cover of a paper-back-book sized volume. It was the 2009 Who's Who in Baseball and it brought back all sorts of memories. As a boy I used to get each year's new edition and go through it avidly. I don't remember how much it cost, but I'd guess 50 cents. I noticed that the current price is $9.95. Should I or shouldn't I? I did.
I have to admit that, until I sat down to write today's blog I hadn't looked at it much. I probably won't look at it much in the future, but it is still a fine reference work and will serve as a bridge between my 1995 edition of the Baseball Enclopedia and today's players. In my cursory inspection of Who's Who I quickly found one item of at least mild interest. Red Sox pitcher John Smoltz, who has been pitching professionally since 1986, has spent only one year in a northern city--1987, in Glens Falls, N.Y., when he was a Detroit Tigers farm hand. He was traded near the end of that season to the Atlanta braves for pitcher Doyle Alexander and spent the rest of that year, and the beginning of 1988, in Richmond, the Braves' Triple A affiliate. The rest of his sure-to-be Hall of Fame career has been in Atlanta. Now he's with the Red Sox, about as far north as you can get and still be in the United States.
Who's Who has been around for nearly a century and it has changed somewhat. A friend of mine has a 1933 copy (for which he could get $85 if it were in mint condition--it isn't--and if he wanted to sell it--he doesn't.) Back then, the Who's Who was more than a compendium of major league players' stats. In addition to listing each player's baseball numbers, the 1933 Who's Who listed home addresses. So if you wanted to write to Babe Ruth, or even visit him, you could go to 345 W. 88th St., NYC and have a beer with The Babe. Lou Gehrig's address was listed as 9 Meadow Ln., New Rochelle, NY. Outfielder Mule Haas, who hit 305 the previous year for the Philadelphia Athletics and was about to be traded to the Chicago White Sox, could be reached at 109 Valley Rd., in Montclair, N.J., the city where he was born.
In addition to players, the 1933 edition listed managers, coaches, umpires, even baseball beat writers and sports editors. Among the latter was Arch Ward, who once was sports editor of the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, and later, more famously, sports editor of the Chicago Tribune. In the latter capacity he would one day interview me for a job on The Tribune sports desk. I didn't get it. But that is a story for another day.
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