DAYTONA BEACH. This city on Florida's west coast has been the headquarters for NASCAR since the stock car racing giant was first formed in 1948. "Some cities looked at us when we were startin' out as just a bunch moonshine-runnin' hillbillies," says NASCAR spokesman Darnell Peters. "Daytona Beach took the time to get to know us and realize we also do beer runs."
"Do you know where I can get a bus transfer?"
But NASCAR's incredible success is threatened by the same high gas prices that are pinching consumer wallets as the price of the special Sunoco 260 GTX unleaded fuel drivers use has now hit $6.25 a gallon. "I was thinkin' I was gonna have to cut back on the number of races I run this summer," says Martin Truex, Jr. "But I put a 4 x 6" note card up in the pits, and me and Robby Gordon are gonna car pool for a while and see how that works out."
"We're gonna bump draft Tony Stewart all the way down the back stretch."
Other drivers say they will use VOTRAN, Volusia County Public Transit System, to keep costs under control at Daytona Beach until gas prices recede. "We will make scheduled stops every four blocks, the same as with our regular routes," says Anna O'Neill, director of customer service for VOTRAN. "NASCAR drivers will be able to jockey for position within the bus as long as they are seated or standing behind the yellow line when we start up again."
Solar-powered Capri Sun #53 Charger
Ultimately, NASCAR's survival may depend on a shift away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy, says Elise van der Hoef, an environmental activist who has never attended a stock car race but felt compelled to butt in anyway. "They could switch to solar-powered cars, which have attained top speeds of 40 miles per hour on a straightaway," she notes as she bites into a tofu and alfalfa sprout sandwich. "That should be enough excitement for anybody."
NEW YORK. Concerned by the failure of their young pitchers to deliver this spring, New York Yankees' manager Joe Girardi and pitching coach Dave Eiland have agreed on a novel therapy--romantic liaisons with teenage country singers of the sort that fueled the Hall of Fame career of hard-throwing right-hander Roger Clemens.
Mindy McCready: Guaranteed to lower your ERA
"We checked with the Elias Sports Bureau," said Eiland, whose young ace Phil Hughes is 0-4 on the season with a 9.00 earned run average. "They have confirmed that an affair with a teenage country singer increases a pitcher's ground-ball outs and first-pitch strikes, so we're gonna go with that."
Clemens: "I know where you live, and I'm comin' after your Shania Twain CD's!"
Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, allegedly began an illicit sexual relationship with country singer Mindy McCready when he was 28 and she was 15. McCready is a country singer whose biggest hit was "Guys Do It All the Time", which Clemens interpreted as an overture upon hearing it on the clubhouse stereo system after a game against the Texas Rangers in 1996.
McCready: "Okay, let's get your running in, then some long toss, then a glass of white zinfandel with Mindy."
Clemens had been declared to be in the "twilight of his career" by then-Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette at the end of the season, but he went on to win 162 games with the Toronto Blue Jays, the Yankees and the Houston Astros. "I may have confused 'twilight' with 'dawn' or maybe 'high noon'," Duquette later explained.
FOXBORO, Mass. With the announcement yesterday that a meeting between NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Matt Walsh has been arranged, insiders have begun to speculate on what hard evidence the former New England Patriots’ video assistant has to back up his claim that the team engaged in illegal taping as far back as 2002.
Matt Walsh
“What he’s got on tape is disturbing,” said a former employee of the team who preferred to remain anonymous. “Bill Belichick, in the shower, with soap on a rope.”
Brut Soap-on-a-Rope
Belichick became obsessed with soap-on-a-rope after the New York Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in 1969, when Belichick was 16. Joe Namath, the Jets’ quarterback who brashly predicted the stunning upset, had been featured using Brut Soap-on-a-Rope in television commercials, and the two became linked in the aspiring coach’s mind. Belichick asked his parents for Brut Soap-on-a-Rope as a birthday present three months later, and has used the product normally associated with adolescent boys ever since as a good luck charm.
Namath: “It’s impossible to fumble soap-on-a-rope in the shower, even when the other guys blitz you.”
Walsh, a minimum wage go-fer for the Patriots, fell out of favor with Belichick following a summer camp scrimmage in which Belichick shouted out “right guard” after a blown offensive assignment. Walsh interpreted the coach’s command to refer to men’s toiletries, and subsequently gave Belichick a Gillette Right Guard boxed gift set that included deodorant, shaving cream and after-shave. Walsh was dismissed from the team shortly thereafter, and grew resentful of the $10.95 he had spent for nought.
Negotiations between Walsh’s lawyer and the NFL had dragged on as the league initially refused to provide legal protection to Walsh for his evidence. “There was a genuine concern that you’d expose your client to prosecution for pornography if you turned over a videotape of Belichick in the shower,” said Robert Bostrom, a professor of criminal law at Boston College Law School. “He wears that hoodie thing for a reason.”
KANSAS CITY, Kansas. NASCAR officials today informed representatives of Pope Benedict XVI that he would not be allowed to compete in the O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 to be held this month at Kansas Speedway because his vehicle, popularly known as "The Popemobile", violated a number of mandatory specifications.
"Sorry--I was trying to find St. Columbkill's."
"Craftsman Trucks must have four-speed manual transmissions and minimum 650 horsepower engines," said NASCAR Rules Chairman Wade Bennett. "The Popemobile is a two-door Mercedes ML 430 with an automatic tranny, a 272 horsepower engine and an illegal air scoop--end of story."
The Popemobile, fueled by divine power.
Pope Benedict expressed disappointment with the ruling, and indicated he would appeal. "Eesa notta fair they no letta me ride witha 2007 Rookie of the Year Willie Allen and thee other toppa-flite Craftsman Truck Drivers," the German pontiff said in the bad Italian accent that all popes are required to use under Roman Catholic canon law. "Letta me tella you, I was ready to whup Ron Hornaday like an ugly stepchild."
Hornaday: "You just try it, Benny-boy."
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is a season-long competition in which modified production pickup trucks race for points that may be redeemed for plastic model kits or credited against time in Purgatory, a place of temporary punishment where those who die with venial, but not mortal sins on their souls are made ready for heaven. In December of 2007, NASCAR announced that the manufacturers of Craftsman tools would terminate their sponsorship after the 2008 season, fueling speculation that the Roman Catholic Church series would step into the breach.
St. Peter's Drag-a-Way, Vatican City
"We view NASCAR as a great tool to reach a demographic where we have trouble drawing parishioners," said Vatican Director of Membership Services Antonio d'Allessandro. "It is hard to recruit from socio-economic groups who believe you are the Anti-Christ."
"Why don't you turn that goofy-looking rig around and git the hell out of here."
The truck series is the only NASCAR division that does not permit "pit stops", instead using a ten-minute "halftime" break during which teams can make any changes they want to their trucks. "It eesa mucha better for an old man like me," Benedict said. "I like to take a giant grape Slurpee along to keep cool, and there's no way I could make it through the Goody's Cool Orange 500," a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, "without a restroom break."
SAN ANTONIO, Texas. Kansas men's basketball coach Bill Self had barely finished cutting down the net here after his team triumphed over Memphis to win the school's first national title in 20 years when the questions started. "I'm not going to get into that until I talk to my wife and myself," he said. "Speaking for myself, I need some security--for her and myself."
Self, keeping his thoughts to himself.
Self is a graduate of Oklahoma State, which recently received $165 million from billionaire alumnus T. Boone Pickens, and there was speculation that he would bolt to Stillwater to cash in at what is the pinnacle of most college coaches' careers.
"Don't make me turn into 'Bad Bill', okay?"
Self is generally viewed as relatively self-effacing among college basketball coaches, who often require universities to supply them with private dressing rooms and other amenities. "I can assure you that Rick Pitino has a separate hot tub and mini-fridge just for his ego," says long-time basketball reporter Chick Bryant, who writes for Hoopsonline.com. "I don't want to think about what he got for his libido."
"I've got to stop chewing myself up over turnovers!"
Critics of high-powered college sports programs say the prospect of a school paying millions of dollars to a man for coaching basketball sent the wrong message to students. "We have philosophy professors who talk to themselves for $60,000 a year," said St. George's College provost Lyle Adkins. "And they don't have to watch their students shower."
Pitino: "I'm my own toughest critic."
Kansas fans were concerned that they might lose their second top-flite coach in five years, as North Carolina coach Roy Williams left the school in 2003 after losing to Syracuse in the national finals game. "I like coach, but I think he's kind of self-centered," said Aimee Lane, a pep band member from Emporia, Kansas. "Like all he ever talks about is himself."
WORCESTER, Mass. Spring is in the air in New England, even if the ground is still too soggy in some places to play baseball. "Like Yogi Berra said, 'April is the cruelest month'," notes Little League dad Todd Schwab. "The spring chill really makes you hungry," he says as he and son Todd, Jr. slurp giant sodas while waiting in line for their turn to meet former Red Sox pitcher Rich Garces, a right-hander whose weight was officially listed as 250 pounds during his playing days, but who was believed to be much heavier. "That was with one foot off the scale," says his former pitching coach Joe Kerrigan.
El Guapo: "You keep eating like that, someday you'll be in the big leagues!"
Garces, also known as "El Guapo" or "The Handsome One" during his major league career, is part of an outreach program on the part of Major League Baseball designed to keep fat kids from quitting the sport so that they will eventually realize their potential as pitchers. "We have a program for black kids," says Commissioner Bud Selig," referring to the RBI or 'Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities' initiative, "but we've never done anything to link today's victims of childhood obesity with the overweight greats of the past."
Wells: "The lunch buffet was picked over, so I ate a batboy."
In San Diego, obese pitcher David Wells has signed on with the Padres for a victory lap to end his career, and he spends time before each game giving kids tips on proper diet. "You've got to learn to pace yourself," he tells Ronnie Dalrymple, a porky twelve year-old who weighs in at 180 pounds and is a set-up man for the Hungry Crab Marlins, an A-level Little League team sponsored by a local restaurant. "When you come to the park, get your protein and carbohydrates first with a couple of hot dogs or three and a soft drink, then get an ice cream bar or sundae." "Uh-huh," the boy says as he nods his head up and down like a bobble-head doll. "Then and only then do you switch to the low-mass, high calorie foods such as cotton candy."
Livan Hernandez: "Do you mind if I get something to eat at the seventh-inning stretch?"
The connection between weight and pitching prowess was often suspected, but never confirmed until a study by Kyle Rayl, a member of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. "If you plot the statistics of pitchers going back though the late 1800's," he notes, "you find that the higher the weight, the lower the ERA."
Antonio Alfonseca and his six-fingered hand.
Back east in suburban Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Antonio Alfonseca is instructing some local youngsters in the finer points of fielding his position. "Those slow-rolling grounders, you want to let your little second baseman or your big first baseman get them for you," he says before agreeing to allow the kids to examine his unique hands, each of which has an extra finger. "I don't know if it's been a help to me in baseball," he says, "but it allows me to shovel food in my mouth much faster."
PARIS. Jubilant fans poured into the streets here last night overturning Renaults and hitting riot policemen with baguettes after France reclaimed the World Baking Championship following a twelve-year dry spell.
"Nous sommes nombre une!"
"We had become like les Cubbies de Chicago," said Alain Robe-de-Bath. "I thought I would not see ever this day in my life until I am dead," he said in the broken English he acquired at L'Ecole Normale du Jerry Lewis.
"Nous sommes nombre une!" shouted Marielle Huysmans, a stewardess for L'Aviation au-Dessus de l'Atterrir et le Mer, a long-winded French company that apparently flies airplanes over both land and water. "Down with American bleached-wheat white-bread imperialism," she added, referring to the American team, which placed first in 1999 and 2005.
" . . . . . . . . "
Even French mimes got into the act, gesturing at passing cars as if they were making the French team's "artistic" submission, an intricate dough sculpture depicting a woman on a bidet, the half-assed plumbing fixture in which the French sort of take baths.
Bidet
French pride was at stake following a string of ignominious defeats to baking expansion teams such as Taiwan, Japan and Tampa Bay. Fans had pressed for a new coach, and Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy tapped Pierre Zimmerman, a "baker's coach" who is known for creating a relaxed kitchen atmosphere. "These guys are professionals," Zimmerman said about his low-key approach. "They don't need Knute Rockne speeches between the soup and fish courses."
Rockne: "You call those profiteroles? They look like Ring-Dings!"
Zimmerman said he would take a week off to recuperate, then begin preparations for the upcoming rookie draft. "We're looking for an inside pastry chef who can make viennoiserie (yeasted pastry) and can sprinkle confectioner's sugar on croissants," he said. "You want somebody who can hit the hole and fill it with raspberries and cream cheese."
CONCORDIA, Illinois. The walls and the rafters of the high school gym in this small downstate town are festooned with banners representing conference, district and state championships won by the boys' sports teams, the Cougars, a symbol of pride for local residents.
Cougar Pride!
"Kids here grow up dreaming of playing football or basketball when they get to high school," says local feed and seed dealer Lloyd Knox. "It's just part of their heritage."
"That's it--let him get behind you!"
And yet Concordia, as the smallest school in the widely-dispersed Tri-County League, hasn't had a winning season in any sport besides bass fishing in over a decade. "We know we can't compete with Champaign, or Urbana, or Champaign-Urbana," Knox says. "So we tell our kids you've got to find what you're good at and stick to it. That's a good life lesson."
The Cougar Marching Band
What the Concordia Cougars excel at is being good losers, and the banners represent "sportsmanship" awards handed out by league officials to keep smaller schools from cancelling their athletic programs and concentrating on academics. "It's like in college, when you hope the dumb kids don't drop out of chemistry or whatever," says Holcomb Blasdale, volunteer commissioner for the Tri-County League. "You need somebody to keep the curve down to a reasonable level."
"A spectacular dropped pass!"
Cougar athletes are taught to go out of their way to give opponents the benefit of the doubt in any contested situation. "When a kid on the other team signals for a fair catch, he's basically running up the white flag of surrender," says head football coach Wilber Rees. "If he drops the ball, we think you ought to give him a chance to pick it up before you just pummel him."
"Have I done everything I could to prepare my kids to lose graciously today?"
This Geneva Convention approach to interscholastic athletics has won Concordia--which means "place of peace" in Latin--many fans in other towns in the region. "The people from Concordia are so nice and pleasant," says Lu Anne Diggs of Waverly, Illinois. "We just love when they come to town--it helps our kids' self-esteem to beat somebody by twenty points without breaking a sweat."
As spring competition begins, Concordia Athletic Director Dirk Powell hopes his teams can again achieve a "hat trick"--worst record and best sportsmanship in the three major sports, football, basketball and baseball. "My only regret is that we don't play hockey here," he says. "Then we'd have a grand-slam."
Hello sports fans. I'm sitting out on the balcony of the Vatican, having my morning espresso, going over the sports page of L'Osservatore Romano. Let me tell you, I don't like what I see.
The Catholic Church started out with ten--ten!--schools out of 64 on the Road to the Final Four. So far, 8 have been knocked on their donkeys like St. Paul and are lying in a ditch next to the breakdown lane. We have only two teams in the Sweet 16. This is not good.
"Nothing but net!"
Let me tell you, Villanova or Xavier better make it at least to the Final Four, or there will be hell to pay. Literally.
Mark Few
I'm thinking, for example, of Gonzaga. Every year, the Zags are the darlings of March Madness. This year--eliminated in the first round! I've got a call into the Archdiocese of Spokane. This guy Mark Few--the head coach--as far as I'm concerned he's leftover tuna noodle casserole about to be scraped into the cafeteria garbage bin of college basketball history. And there won't be any nun standing by to tell me to take my tray back to my seat and clean my plate because there are point guards starving in Bosnia-Herzogovinia.
Emeka Okafor
Here comes Francis Arinze, the Cardinal from Nigeria. He's been completely insufferable since he picked UConn to go all the way in 2004. Big deal, he knew Omeka Ekafor, or Emeka Okafor, or however you spell it. Wants to be called "the patron saint of Hoops". Puh-lease. Makes me want to gag. Thank God we have St. Blaise, the patron saint of people who get things stuck in their throats. How ya doing, Frank--nice to see you too. Yeah, see you in the gym later.
St. Blaise: "Try a throat lozenge."
Blow it out your shorts you overgrown ball boy.
I'm looking at my sheets and wondering where I went wrong. Davidson beat Georgetown in the second round--I sure as hell didn't see that one coming. Screwed up my whole Midwest bracket, and the entire game I was throwing everything I had at the TV. Leaning into the low-post to help the Hoyas get better position, setting invisible moving picks to get G-town open looks. Then Arinze walks in and says "It won't do you any good--the game's on tape delay." What a wise-guy. All because he figured out how to work the DVD player in the Vatican rec room first.
I'm pretty sure I'm still the Pope, the direct descendant and living embodiment of St. Peter. They were eliminated in the first round, too. No wait--that was St. Joseph's. And St. Mary's.
If Kansas beats Villanova, and West Virginia beats Xavier, I'll have nothing to watch but boring half-court NBA basketball until next fall.
Remember to check Baltimore Catechism and see if suicide is still a mortal sin.
TAMPA, Florida. The mood in the New York Yankees' clubhouse was solemn after a 5-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates Thursday. "They're making cuts today," pitcher Kei Igawa told a reporter from Japan. "Many people are very nervous."
"Let's practice the glove-throwing play."
When a player was summoned to the manager's office, he knew the news wasn't likely to be good. And so when veteran Billy Crystal heard coach Tony Pena call out "Hey, Mr. Funny Man! Skip wants to see you", his teammates said nothing and avoided eye contact as Crystal made the long walk to manager Joe Girardi's office.
Billy Crystal
Crystal, a 60-year old comedian, movie star and Oscar host, had been hoping to extend his illustrious career by switching to designated hitter, a position where veterans whose fielding skills and timing have diminished can hope to hang on for a few more years until they lose their batting eye. "Henny Youngman did it," Crystal had said to reporters in front of his locker just the day before. "At the end his delivery had slowed down, but he could still knock out a joke in a clutch situation."
Girardi
"Billy, have a seat," Girardi said to the aging comic. "How's the family?" he asked, making small talk. "Fine," Crystal said, although his face bore an expression of concern that belied his word. "Well, Bill, let me cut to the chase," Girardi said after some more palaver. "We appreciate all you did for us in your single celebrity at bat, but the club has decided to move in a different direction."
Scouting report: "Like someone trying to swat a fly with a meat cleaver."
Crystal's face registered a look of dismay, then resignation. "So it's over?" he said.
"We could re-assign you to the Columbus Clippers, but if we give you an outright release, you might catch on with--I don't know--Tampa Bay or Kansas City."
Murphy: "He's got the bling, he's got the swing."
"Thanks," Crystal said, hurt but appreciative. "Just out of curiosity," the star of hit movies such as "When Harry Met Sally" asked, "who're you going with at veteran designated comedian?"
"We just picked up Eddie Murphy from Los Angeles."
"Eddie Murphy? A ex-Saturday Night Live hack who's making kiddie movies now?" Crystal had famously turned down an offer to join the regular cast of the late-night comedy program early in his career, and it paid off when he made the move to Hollywood sooner than expected.
"He's got the bling, he's got the swing," Girardi said as he picked up a pile of scouting reports. "We're looking for a more explosive sense of humor--one that will put runners in scoring position."
"What's wrong with my schtick?" Crystal said, lapsing into Borscht Belt yiddish for a comic's material.
"Bill, it's fine--but times have changed," Girardi said. "Yours is a more situational, observational humor. Did you know the Yankees were last in the AL East last year in stolen bases to Jewish mother jokes?"
"I haven't told one of those since . . . "
" . . . and that we failed to bring home fifteen runners in scoring position during Labor Day telethons by washed-up comedians? Those numbers aren't good."
Jerry Lewis: "$81 million folks. That'll buy a utility infielder, or a left-handed pinch hitter with some pop in his bat!"
Crystal was silent, and hung his head.
"How 'bout the Red Sox," Crystal asked. "They have a history of hiring comedians, like Bill Lee . . ."
Bill "Spaceman" Lee
"I think they're all set," Girardi said. "They just signed Jay Leno."
"Leno!" Crystal screamed. "You've gotta be kidding me!"
"Nope. He's local--from Andover, Mass."
"But he's got that big chin!"
"That's a plus. When the chin music"--baseball slang for high, inside pitches--"start's flying, he'll be a valuable asset."
"I don't get it," Crystal said.
"The way that thing sticks out, he has the highest hit-by-pitch to at-bat ratio of any major league comic."
I am, at best, an indifferent follower of professional golf. I know who Tiger Woods is. There's Vijay Singh, who sounds like he should be from India, is actually from the Fiji Islands (there's more than one?), and doesn't want to play with girls. There's Greg Norman, who makes $15 a bottle wine, and so is way out of my price range.
For me, golf's handicap--to coin a phrase--is that it's a game for grown-ups, an oxymoron. During this year's Accenture Match Play Championship, my mother-in-law, who has a more than passing interest in the game, asked me what "Accenture" was. I had to break the news to her gently. "It's a consulting firm that was spun off from an accounting firm." "Oh," she said with a disappointed tone, as if I had told her that the thrilling action on TV was brought to her by the IRS.
Granted, a consulting firm that's spun off from an accounting firm is more exciting that just a plain old accounting firm. It's still a comedown from beer, razors and tires, the customary sponsors of other sports. It's not as if two guys watching Tiger Woods beat Stewart Cink are going to jump up after they turn off the TV and say "That was great--I could really go for a report on increasing shareholder value by focusing on our core competencies in a changing marketplace."
Z-z-z-z.
"Yeah, me too! Make mine vello bound, clear front cover, black back!"
But then there's John Daly. In an age when so many professional athletes have bent, broken or ignored the rules, using performance-enhancing controlled substances to gain that extra competitive edge, Daly has stuggled against and overcome self-imposed obstacles, playing at the highest level of the game using nothing but performance-impairing drugs such as beer, Diet Cokes and cigarettes. God bless him.
My thoughts turn to Daly today not because he won a tournament recently--as far as I know he has not--but because of a story in the news yesterday that Butch Harmon, Daly's swing coach, has terminated his relationship with the man known for his "Grip it and rip it" long-distance drives. Other golfers have swing coaches who have swing coaches, personal trainers, impersonal trainers, etc. Daly's swing coach quit on him. Then again, Daly seems like the kind of guy who, if he was sitting in a golf cart with you having a beer and saw his swing coach approaching, would say "Beat it--here's comes my damn swing coach."
The coach quit because of Daly's conduct at a recent golf tournament, where Daly spent a 2 1/2 hour rain delay in the Hooters "Owl's Nest" tent. A pro golf tournament where Hooters, the "delightfully tacky yet unrefined" restaurant chain whose waitresses wear revealing tank tops, sells beer is what Anglo-American law refers to as an "attractive nuisance". You can't put an alcohol-fueled dining experience that involves large mammary glands on the 17th hole oBLEEPolf course and not expect people to misbehave.
"Sign where?"
Daly's offense? It will surprise you. In an era when millionaire athletes routinely stiff autograph-seekers and refuse to hit home runs for sick kids in hospitals, Daly drank beer, mingled with fans and signed autographs, "including one on the back of a woman's pants" according to a wire service report. Is that so terribly wrong? Have we as a nation strayed so far from our first principles that a man can't--in good faith--autograph a woman's butt? I would hope not, but I'm beginning to have my doubts.
George Graham Vest
Daly, like me, is from central Missouri, a part of the country whose most famous residents are dogs: Old Drum and Jim the Wonder Dog. The man who said (more or less) "A dog is man's best friend", George Graham Vest, is from the region as well. The nation's only magazine devoted exclusively to tree hound hunting, "Full Cry", was published there. With so much canine achievement to admire, some local humans tend to slack off when it comes to their own personal ambitions.
Old Drum: Famous for getting shot.
Not Daly. This is a man who, besides being a top-notch athlete--I mean golfer--recorded an autobiographical album of songs, "My Life", featuring Willie Nelson. With a sideman like that, you can be pretty sure there was some recreational drug use involved in the production of the final master tapes.
Daly doesn't fly to golf tournaments. He travels in an RV--that's a "recreational vehicle"--one of those tacky, humble, humongous houseboats on wheels you see on the interstate in flyover country. I worked on an RV assembly line one summer, and am required by federal blogging regulations to disclose that there is an inordinate amount of glue and staples used in their construction. Do not try to vault the Grand Canyon in an RV.
Crusaders: "We're also looking for a copy of 'Lickin' Stick' by George Torrance and the Naturals."
One of the thrice-married Daly's songs is "All of My Exes Wear Rolexes", a song that is not available on iTunes, and which I've tried to find for years. In the Middle Ages, the quest for an item of such cultural significance would have turned into a Crusade, with thousands of lives lost.
Daly showed up at a tournament in 2007 with cuts on his face, saying his wife had attacked him with a steak knife, although she said he had scratched himself after an argument with her. Not pretty, but then again more interesting than the sort of unpleasantness you go through when your wife says "I can't believe you wore that tie!" just as you're about to walk into a Christmas party. The man lives large.
Babe Ruth at the piano: "Does this thing float?"
Daly may be the last of the Ruthian giants of sport, a throwback to a bygone era. Babe Ruth loved beer, hot dogs, cigars and women, and indulged in them to excess. When he played for the Red Sox, Ruth lived on a farm in Sudbury, Mass. where, according to legend, there is a piano at the bottom of a pond. The story is told that Ruth rolled the piano out onto its frozen surface one night to accommodate a large crowd for a sing-along, then--as often happens after this sort of affair--forgot to bring it back indoors, and it sank when the ice thawed.
AUSTIN, Texas. New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton raised the bar by which her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination should be judged in a speech to supporters last night, saying Illinois Senator Barack Obama needed to score a "triple double"--a three-state victory by at least ten percentage points--in the four primaries being held today.
Barack Obama, in "Hoop Dreams" phase.
"My opponent likes people to think 'he got game'," the former First Lady said in a speech that drew heavily on street slang she picked up Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. "Let me tell you something--he's gonna get a schoolin', and I ain't foolin'!"
Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
The term "triple double" is derived from basketball, where it refers to a game in which a player accumulates double-digit totals in any three of these categories--points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots. It became widely popular during the mid-1980's, when Larry Bird and Magic Johnson would routinely achieve "quadruple doubles", a triple double followed by ten Bud Lights for Bird and ten women for Johnson.
Clinton and Magic Johnson: "When she sets up in the low post, you can't move her!"
The four states that will hold primaries today are Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. Clinton and Obama were both campaigning in Texas today, the biggest prize with 193 delegates and a two-day/one-night Family Pack Special at Six Flags Over Texas, an amusement park, at stake. The candidates engaged in a friendly game of "21" organized by the Democratic National Committee at an elementary school playground here, where an Associated Press reporter picked up a bit of "trash talking" before the candidates threw "rock-paper-scissors" to decide who would get the ball first:
OBAMA: We had a back porch when I was growing up in Kansas, but it wasn't anywhere near as big as that!
Playground hoops: "Yo, Hillary--take a chill-pillary."
CLINTON: Are those your ears, or missile defense radar dishes that are draining money away from America's social ills?
ABILENE, Texas. Ryan Simmons is, to all appearances, a slightly scrawny high school senior with no particular athletic ability, but he's drawing attention from top colleges across the country as recruiting season swings into high gear. "I don't know what it is," says his mother, Pearl, a municipal employee. "He was drum major for the marching band all four years, so he never even put on a jock strap outside of gym class."
Simmons: "Over there's the Science Building, and behind me is Greek row."
Ryan has a talent that is prized by college admissions officers--the ability to walk backwards in a straight line at a regular pace while avoiding people, plants and inanimate objects and talking at the same time. "Ryan will probably end up at a big school like Alabama or Michigan," says Jim Stampfeld, a writer who follows the college recruiting scene, "but he can basically write his ticket wherever he goes."
"Take the steps one at a time so you don't trip you clumsy doofuses."
Ryan is projected as a freshman starter for the tour guide squad at whatever school he attends, as colleges find that a fast first step backwards and an ability to climb stone steps in reverse are critical factors in luring impressionable high school students and their parents to a campus. "I couldn't believe that guy," says Mykal Woods, a senior at Forest Park High School in St. Louis about James "D Train" Glenn, a consensus All-American tour guide at the University of Kentucky. "He said he'd take one more question about the Student Union, he answered it with one word and he was gone" down a brick pathway that leads to Rupp Gymnasium.
"You think you can beat me in one-on-one coverage? Just try it."
Amanda Weiss-Web of Brandeis University is representative of a new breed of campus tour guide who has used weight training and off-season conditioning to turn herself from a walk-on her freshman year to a potential lottery pick when museums and art galleries tap top college backpedallers on Draft Day '08. "Last summer I did everything backwards," she says. "Ate dessert first, broke up with a guy before I slept with him, the whole nine yards." The only knock against her is a tendency to draw illegal contact penalties in passing situations. "When it's near the end of the tour and kids make a run for the bookstore to buy sweatshirts, she'll bump them at the line of scrimmage," says Al Groe, head scout for the Whitney Museum in New York. "She needs to learn to release and talk to the parents. They're the ones who write the big checks."
MEDFORD, Mass. Peggy and Dave Finnerty admit they're hockey nuts, having spent countless hours carting their two sons to games at the break of dawn. "It's what we love to do," says Peggy, who sports a Boston Bruins scrunchy around her pony tail as she watches a practice at Anthony LoConte Rink in this blue-collar suburb.
"I'm five, but I've been playing for six years."
Peggy is expecting, and the Finnertys are doing everything they can to make sure their newest child gets a head start in the highly competitive world of youth hockey. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Peggy straps on her pads and takes to the ice with other pregnant women in what is believed to be the world's first pre-natal hockey league.
"We figure if we can give our kid an extra nine months of ice time, it will pay off when tryouts for the travel team roll around in a couple of years," says Dave, who played goalie for Bridgewater-Raynham High School. "You want to be prepared for those drills where they skate around the orange traffic cones."
The parental urge to impart skills to offspring still in the womb began with the "Baby Mozart" movement a few years back. Researchers claimed that children exposed to classical music during their mothers' pregnancies had higher IQs than those whose parents listened to heavy metal and hard rock. Zell Miller, then-governor of Georgia, sponsored legislation to give classical music to every expectant mother in the state, but the program was cancelled when numerous couples tried to exchange the cassettes for Shania Twain tapes.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Shania Twain: He does spend more time on his hair.
Pediatricians are skeptical that pre-natal hockey does much to produce future Bobby Orrs. "Hockey requires a high degree of hand-eye coordination that you won't get just bouncing around in your mother's amniotic fluid," said Dr. Pamela Wysbard of the Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston. Wysbard said the possibility of injury to the fetus greatly outweighed any benefit that pre-natal hockey could produce. "We discourage women from checking while pregnant, unless you're in a neutral-zone trap. There's too much risk of a penalty, and then the other team gets a power play."
"Deke him, Kyle!"
But Dave Finnerty isn't buying it. "Last year Kyle, our 12-year old, got to the state finals and we lost in overtime when a kid from Melrose blew by him on a breakaway. That never woulda happened if he'd been out there with his mom before he was born," Finnerty claims.
And how old was Kyle when he began playing hockey? "Four," Finnerty says ruefully. "He got a late start."
NEW YORK. Encouraged by the success of its business-casual dress code in reforming the league's "hip-hop" image, NBA officials today announced that they will push for a "tattoo cap" when the current collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of the 2011 season.
Stern: "A tasteful 'Mom' on your bicep will not count against the cap."
"We feel it is important that our players not scare the bejesus out of affluent demographic groups with gangsta-style tattoos," David Stern said at a press conference here today. "Otherwise we might as well name the next two expansion franchises the 'Crips' and the 'Bloods'," he added, showing off his "street cred" to the admiration of NBA beat reporters.
"This kid's got a lot of heart, and a lot of epidermis."
Under the proposed cap, teams would be limited to a total tattoo coverage of 61% of the upper arms and necks of players on their twelve-man rosters. Teams could free up cap space by trading a power forward from an "urban" school for a shooting guard from Brigham Young or a flat-footed center from Gonzaga.
Seattle SuperSonics' owners: "Well, there was this girl named 'Tina' . . ."
Player representatives reacted angrily to the proposal. Mark Madsden of the Timberwolves said he wanted to see the bodies of NBA owners in the showers before agreeing to any cap. "Some of these guys may have 'Semper Fi' on their butts. Let them drop their pants and show the players what they got."
