No Mas TV: Brooklyn to Beijing

As some of you already know, we have been working on a documentary video project called "Brooklyn to Beijing" about three New York City amateurs trying to make the 2008 US Olympic Boxing Team.

We were going to wait until next week to officially announce that the first four episodes are up, but a sharp-eyed scribe at Maxboxing gave us some love while we were still trying to be coy with the beta-testing.

So with the cat out of the proverbial bag, we just want to make sure our homepretzels are not in the dark. Check out: No Mas TV.

The four episodes online now follow middlewight Danny "The Golden Child" Jacobs. He's from Brownsville, he's won four NYC Golden Gloves titles, he looks kinda like Carmelo Anthony, his hands are ridiculously fast, and he is already, in his own words, a "ghetto celebrity".

Over the next couple of weeks, you'll also meet Will Rozinsky from Ozone Park and Saddam "World Kid" Ali from Canarsie.

As we build the interconnected "Brooklyn to Beijing" storylines, we look forward to hearing feedback from our core peoples on what's working and what isn't. So please hit us with your thoughts when you can.

Thank you for supporting.

Keep the gloves up,

ci

The Splinter and Friends

Hell of a birthday crew today, including one of the original No Mas Hall of Fame inductees, the Splendid Splinter himself. The best of the rest include... two tennis players, one on the roids and one who probably should be, a tawny-locked Czech midfielder, perhaps alpine's most dashing and dignified legend, every fantasy dork's wet dream, Louisiana's greatest demagogue, an Irish swimmer turned poker player, a Philly-born cartoonist who keeps on truckin, a long-forgotten member of the Bombers' best, the weed-smoking Chief, the towel-chewing Tark, and last but certainly first in Large's heart, the one and only heart-pounding Tugger.

Anything worth having is worth stealing

How time flies. And records are made to be broken. And a slew of other appropriate clichés. Thirty years ago today, the Cardinals' Lou Brock stole two bases against the Padres at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, raising his career total to 893, a total that made him baseball's reigning King of Base Thievery. The record he broke was set by an immortal, Ty Cobb, who with sharpened spikes and a hateful grimace had barrelled his way to 892 career steals, a mark that stood unchallenged for 49 years. When Brock retired from baseball, he left the new record at 938 steals, but of course his record would not last so long as Cobb's. No one could have known in 1979, Brock's last season, that that the seeds of Lou's supplanting had already been sown in Oakland, where a flashy rookie named Rickey was already stretching his young legs, notching 33 steals in only 89 games, an auspicious beginning to a record-breaking lifetime of burglary on the basepaths.

K.O.W. - Tito! Tito!

No Masians, I'm sure you can imagine what I think about the Roy Jones/Felix Trinidad fight. The last we saw of Tito, he was being out and out humiliated by Winky, and that was over two years ago. Meanwhile, Roy Jones, once among the most exciting pure talents in boxing history, has now turned his career into a once-annual humiliation tour - one fight each in 2005 (humiliating loss to Tarver), 2006 (humiliating win over Prince Ajamu), and 2007 (humiliating appearance in the ring with somebody whose name I don't care to remember.)

Suffice it to say, the Roy/Tito bout is a joke, and I'm surprised to read today that it looks like HBO is going to take the bait and run this as a PPV sometime in January. I'll say it now and I promise to stick to my guns - I will not buy this fight. That said, both of these guys were glorious in their heydays and rather than dwell on the ignominious present, in true No Mas fashion I'd like to revisit the more harmonious past. Roy has already starred in a Knockout of the Week (The Legend of Roy), so for today's K.O.W. I thought I'd throw some love to Tito by featuring his startling, stentorian stupefaction of William Joppy in 2001, Trinidad's last hurrah as an undefeated fighter before Bernard busted his brains out later that year. Enjoy.

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Penny for your thoughts, Tony Soprano. Since episode one, season one, when the ducks flew off from your pool, you signaled your love for animals. In fact, you felt more solace in the presence of animals than with humans. Remember sitting with your thoroughbred horse Pie-O-My while she rested in her stable? The rain came down outside, soothing the rage inside you. The capper was when a goat entered, bleating. It was probably your happiest moment in the entire series. Now let’s flash forward to when you heard that Pie-O-My had died in a fire. You were more than a bit perturbed when Ralph Cifarello vaguely admitted his part in killing your favorite horse. So, of course, you beat the shit out of Ralphie, strangled him and then had Christopher dismember the corpse.

Which brings me to Michael Vick, the anti-Tony Soprano. These days, you can beat your wife, smoke craclk, bugger a sophomore cheerleader, impregnate Bridget Moynahan out of wedlock, but whatever you do, DON’T hurt an animal. It is perhaps the most serious moral infraction in America's immorallly hyper-moral landscape. For instance, remember when Chef, Clean and Lance lit up that boat full of Vietnamese in Apocalypse Now? Chief thought they were running guns, but the girl was just hiding her puppies - only when they discovered the dogs did the waterworks start, because, you know, puppies are sad. Skip from Indochina to Japan. Tsunayoshi Tokugawa was the fifth Tokugawa shogunate of Japan. He wasn’t no Richard Chamberlain, but he became known as the ‘Dog Shogun’ because he was so obsessed with dogs that he passed laws which protected dogs sometimes to the detriment of his own people. Speaking of which, remember what it was like walking down the streets of NYC in the 80’s wearing a fur coat? Man, it was hard out there on a pimp. Faster than you could say Sherwin Williams, you’d get some Minuet White thrown up on your sable.

We watch movies and TV shows with body counts galore. But god forbid a bad guy lays a finger on little Sally’s dog! Now he is evil. Which brings me back to Tony. For all of his sociopathic faults, for all his murdering and burning and looting and extorting, one redeeming quality he offered was a soft spot for animals, and somehow we were expected to take that as sign of his essential decency. We know for a fact that he would request far more than just a sitdown with Mr. Vick. There is nothing worse to a murderer like Tony than murdering an animal. I’m not saying that Vick is better or worse than Lawrence Phillips, Rae Carruth, Eugene Robinson, or Tony Soprano. All I’m saying is that he picked the wrong crime at the wrong time. He’s a felon all right, but a felon that killed Old Yeller.
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This post comes to us courtesy of Gentry Kirby (Tulane ’93), a freelance TV producer who plied his trade with SportsCentury for many years. He also produced the ill-fated Classic Now on which he had the pleasure of working with Large. Real estate and family took him down to Charlotte where he developed a taste for NASCAR, and where the warm weather has enabled him to strengthen his golf game.

Classic No Mas - Quite a Gamble

(With the Hall debates about McGwire and Bonds swirling, we take you back to the biggest Hall debate of them all - Charlie Hustler, the hit-king and the king of the clowns, who signed his own death notice 18 years ago today.)

On this day in 1989, Pete Rose accepted a lifetime ban from baseball. Major League Baseball had the goods on him - iron-clad evidence that Rose had been gambling on games for years, including betting on his own Reds while managing the team.

Rose knew he was dead to rights. Why else would he willingly agree to a lifetime ban? But it was the wording of the agreement that really screwed him up. In signing, Rose admitted that there was a reason for his ban, but did not admit what that reason was. MLB, meanwhile, agreed to not release the findings of their investigation into Rose's gambling habits and to remain mum on the topic. It was a nod-nod-wink-wink situation of the highest order, and one can only imagine that Rose was motivated to sign it with an eye toward the Hall of Fame. Well aware that no man known to have gambled on baseball, no matter how great he was, would gain entry to the Hall, Rose obviously thought this little bit of sleight of hand might keep his candidacy alive.

So he bullheadedly, ridiculously stood by his claim for years - yes, I gambled, but not on baseball. It was quite a gamble in its own right - very Pete Rose, really. Damn the torpedos. Of course, he lost, and he lost big. But it was bound to happen. As any good gambler knows, you can't bluff when the other guy's holding the nuts.

Birthday Fever

All born today, and submitted for your approval - a motivational speaker with one sack on his stat line, a motivated golfer who just can't seem to win the big one, the best fake sports agent in the history of fake sports agents, the best basketball player in the history of Lower Merion High School, the best basketball player in the history of the Netherlands, perhaps the 20th century's most graceful dancer and most athletic drummer, an Winter Olympics legend and a Summer Olympics darling, two quarterbacks (one great, one not so much), two baseball players (one great, one incredibly old), and last but certainly not least, the strongest man ever to regularly wear a dress.

Classic No Mas - You Call That a Brawl?

(What with Jose Offerman's recent bat-slinging escapade, it seemed appropriate to take you back to this day in 1965, with a Classic No Mas piece on the infamous John Marichal/John Roseboro/Sandy Koufax showdown at Candlestick. Note the similarities in the two pictures, Offerman on the right and Marichal below. Not much has changed it seems in the business of mound-chargin' and bat-wieldin'.)
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This was a brawl right here. First of all, look at two of the principals - Juan Marichal and Sandy Koufax. Also note Marichal brandishing the bat. That would cost him dearly.

On this day in 1965, one of the ugliest fights in baseball history occurred, a donnybrook of mythic proportions between the Dodgers and the Giants. There had been some bean-balling in a game two days prior, and in this game, Dodgers' catcher John Roseboro reputedly wanted Koufax to knock down Marichal. When Koufax refused, Roseboro took the job on himself, whipping a return throw to the mound very close to Marichal's head. A screaming match ensued, and Roseboro threw off his mask to better express himself. At that point Marichal landed a couple of clean bat-shots to Roseboro's head.

All hell broke loose. Bats were brandished by other players. Roseboro was led off the field by Willie Mays, bleeding profusely. His wound required fourteen stitches.

Marichal was suspended for nine days and fined the then-considerable sum of $1,750. But the damage stretched far beyond the immediate punishment - the incident would haunt Marichal the rest of his career and may have postponed his entry into the Hall of Fame.

One wonders if Robby Alomar will suffer a similar fate for the gob of spit he planted on John Hirschbeck's face in 1996 . Somehow I doubt it. Outrage just ain't what it used to be.

History of The Travers Stakes

The Travers Stakes is an icon of American racing because it has been around forever. Well, almost. The race was first run in 1864, and it has been renewed every year since, making the Travers Stakes the longest continuously run stakes in the history of American racing.

The first Travers was won by the fine colt Kentucky, owned by John Hunter and William Travers (that's Travers pictured on the right), for whom the race was named. Travers was also president of the Saratoga Association, which ran the race meetings at the upstate New York spa during the boisterous mid- to late-19th century.

The press today might prime their slings and arrows if a track president raced the winner of its most prestigious event, but the previous era in racing was – if not kinder and gentler – at least less suspicious of a bit of good fortune in an endeavor where all the participants are fighting for the same end: the winner’s circle.

Nor did the result seem unwelcome considering that Travers was a well-regarded man of means with a sense of humor. Once, it is said, while passing an establishment of the snootier sort, a companion asked Travers whether the gentlemen on the veranda were habituees of the club. He assessed that not all of them were. Some, he said, were sons of habituees.

Thanks in part to the seasoned humor of this old-style racing man, we will be celebrating the 144th running of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 25, and Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense will be favored to add this historic race to his list of accomplishments. Despite his many successes, Street Sense will need his running shoes to match the performance of the Travers winner 40 years ago. No winner was more emphatic in his domination of the Travers than Damascus in 1967 (video below). Already the winner of the Preakness and Belmont Stakes when he entered the Travers, Damascus blew away his opposition – literally swamping them on a sloppy racetrack – by 22 lengths – and made himself the apparently invincible champion of his age. When he won impressively from older competition in the Woodward Stakes and Jockey Club Gold Cup in September and October, Damascus earned his selection as the Horse of the Year.


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Frank Mitchell lives on a farm where he writes and raises horses about 30 minutes from Keeneland. He's written two books on horse-racing and writes a regular column on Thoroughbred bloodlines for Daily Racing Form that can be found at drf.com.

K.O.W. - King Arthur

You know who's a tough son of a bitch? Arthur Abraham, that's who. This Armenian-born, German-bred tank is the current IBF champ at 160, and is one of two people to beat Edison Miranda, the other of course being Kelly Pavlik, who fights for Jermain Taylor's belts this September. Now granted, Abraham got his jaw broken in two places while defeating La Pantera, while Pavlik just busted out his pimp cane on the motherfucker. But still, it seems about time that King Arthur get thrown into the mix in all the talk of superfights at 160. His team has hinted that he's ready for a big debut in the States. I wonder if the winner of Pavlik/Taylor would deign to face him. Then again, you have to wonder if the winner of Pavlik/Taylor is going to be able to stand up for a few months after they face each other.

Anyway, I thought I'd stoke the Abraham fires by featuring him as our Knockout of the Week - I was actually going to do that last week with his knockout of Sebastien Demers but I'm glad I didn't, because this one is much better. Abraham won the fifth defense of his IBF title in stunning fashion this past Saturday, with a neck-wrecka of a knockout over fellow Armenian Khoren Gevor. This is one of those picture-perfect KO's, a short, precise uppercut, a bobblehead doll, and goodnight Irene. Look at the way Gevor just hangs there lifeless on his knees for a few seconds before collapsing backwards to the canvas - it's ridiculous. Thanks Chief for directing me to the video (man they get these shits up on Youtube quick). While you're checking this out people, let's all fantasize about a Pavlik/Abraham unification bout sometime next February.

Back in Black

Talk about your must-see TV. Twenty-two years ago today, Mike Tyson fought for the first time in over four years after serving three of those years in prison for the rape of Desiree Washington. His opponent was a pudgy Irishman from Boston named Peter McNeeley, a journeyman with no talent and no real desire and just about nothing to recommend him. McNeeley had no business being in the ring with Joey Buttafucco, let alone Kid Dynamite, and the fight, as with so many Tyson contests back in the day, did not make it out of the first round. McNeeley was down twice in the blink of an eye, and after 89 seconds his trainer had seen enough and jumped into the ring to save his charge. Mills Lane ruled it a DQ, and the Tyson circus was back in business.

The most amazing thing for me to remember about this fight is that it was, at the time, the biggest gate in boxing history, totaling somewhere in the vicinity of $15 mill. It seems bizarre in retrospect that such an obviously lopsided affair could generate that kind of loot, but I myself vividly remember the feeling that I had to see this fight, and if I'd had a spare $1500 laying around, I gladly would have shelled it out for a ringside seat. Tyson was such compelling drama back then that it simply didn't matter who he was fighting - all that mattered was that he was back in the ring. One wonders when, if ever, boxing will produce a star that animates such overwhelming interest again.

The One You Don't See

Eighty-seven years ago today, Major League baseball experienced a tragedy that would lead to its first and only fatality caused by injuries suffered on the field. On August 16, 1920, Cleveland Indians' shortstop Ray Chapman was hit on the head by a pitch from Yankees submarine-baller Carl Mays. The impact was so loud that Mays thought it had struck Chapman's bat and ran in to field the ball.

The ball had in fact hit Chapman right in the temple, fracturing his skull. Blood flowed from his ears, nose and mouth after he collapsed at the plate. Amazingly, he briefly regained consciousness while being carried to the dugout (what an awful moment that must have been) before passing out again. He was rushed to the hospital where surgery was performed upon him to no avail. He died at 4:30 a.m. the next morning.

Chapman was a prototypical shortstop of the era - hit for average, stole a lot of bases, flashed the leather with aplomb. He was known to crowd the plate, and Carl Mays was known not to dig that. It's the type of confrontation that takes place at least once in every baseball game, and yet of course they wear helmets today. Oddly, this incident didn't speed the regular acceptance of the batting helmet, which did not become mandatory in the bigs until 1971. The death of Ray Chapman did spur a significant rule change, however, one that forced umpires to replace the game ball every time it became unrecognizably dirty. It seems just like good bloody sense to us today, but remember this was the age of the doctored ball, and every pitcher at the time would pretty much work a fresh baseball into the shade of a turd before they even thought about throwing their first pitch. Mays was notorious for this, and it was said that Chapman never even saw the pitch that killed him.

The Indians, wearing black armbands to commemorate Chapman, went on to win their first World Series that year. Chapman was replaced at short by rookie Joe Sewall, who would go on to man the position for ten more years in Cleveland in a Hall-of-Fame career.

(Check out the New York Times account of the Chapman incident. Note that the outcome of the game - 4-3 Cleveland - gets the lead paragraph.)

Squirrels

I.
In the backyard we got a lot of trees.
In our home I've watched them leap
From limb to limb.
Unbelievable.

II.
Did you ever get one in your attic?
They're not too cute
When they get in your attic.
I'll tell you that.


III.
I would not harm a squirrel.
I don't want to get those animal lovers . . .
I got them in my attic.
No, I got,
But I got a squirrel cage
Then took them out in the woods
Over by Yogi's house
And dropped them off.

[June 7, 1991 / Texas at New York / John Habyan pitching to Steve Buechele / Ninth inning, one out, bases empty / Tie score, 4-4]

From O Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto, edited by Hart Seely and Tom Peye (Ecco, 1997).

Money

Rizzuto,

Even at your absolute worst, you were always at your best. Cobb respected you, Williams fought for you, and we will all remember you as a gritty winner on the field and a joyful disaster in the booth.

Tonight, I am going to go get a cannoli at the Fortunato Bakery and somehow through the cosmic airwaves, I am going to try and send the taste of it your way. For all the sweetness you sent out in your life, you have a lot coming back.

Goodbye Scooter. We'll miss you.

Love,

No Mas

Hit the Road Jack

Thirty-one years young, Tiger Woods won his 13th major yesterday, solidifying his status as the greatest front-runner in the history of the game, and also all but making it a statistical certainty that he will hunt down the Golden Bear and eventually surpass Nicklaus's golfing gold-standard of 18 major championships.

It's been pointed out everywhere today that Tiger 13th major victory came in his 44th start in a major, while it took the Golden Bear 53 majors to win 13. In fact, at the age of 31 Jack had only nine majors to his name, winning, like Tiger, only one in his 31st year, the 1971 PGA. In taking home the '71 Wanamaker Trophy, Jack achieved what was then thought of as an almost unimaginable feat, becoming the only golfer in history to win each of the Grand Slam tournaments twice in his career.

Tiger of course became the second to do that when he won the British Open in 2005, and now it seems almost a sure thing that he also will become the second golfer to win 18 majors, and perhaps even 19. Of course there are a lot of variables - injury, burnout, a prolonged case of the yips. But the guy seems so focused out there, and so determined to catch Nicklaus, that it feels like a done deal already. Yes, it will take some kindness from the golf gods as he begins to age, because as some wise man once pointed out, time is a ruthless foe. But then again let's face it - when it comes to the golf gods, Tiger Woods has always found himself in good favor. In fact, he might as well be Achilles himself, and there ain't a Hector in sight.

50 years ago at Saratoga

In looking backward at the events at Saratoga race-course 50 years ago, one of the strangest twists of fate occurred to the winner of the 1957 Alabama Stakes, which is the most prestigious race for 3-year-old fillies at the scenic upstate New York track.

The winner that year was the chestnut filly Here and There, who was bred and raced by Robert Kleberg’s King Ranch. This was an era of great influence for the famous Texas ranch, which had expanded its holdings to include a significant amount of acreage in Kentucky and some of the best racehorses in the world. Two of the most successful horses that King Ranch bred and raced were Assault, winner of the Triple Crown in 1946, and Middleground, who won the 1950 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes. This pair were the best sons of a stallion named Bold Venture, who had won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 1936.

But in addition to being a top-class racehorse and a better than average sire, Bold Venture passed along a peculiar fault. Although the condition wasn’t known when his sons began racing, most had fertility problems if used as stallions. Assault was sterile, and Middleground wasn’t much better, typically getting fewer than 10 foals per crop.

Here and There was in Bold Venture's third group of foals and was her sire’s first stakes winner. She was good going a distance like the mile and a quarter of the Alabama, and her success at Saratoga offered hope to King Ranch with these talented but infertile horses.
The night of the Alabama, however, the King Ranch barn at Saratoga caught fire, and among the horses killed was Here and There. The picture above is of Here and There in the winner's circle at Saratoga after the Alabama. Presumably, it is the last picture taken of the filly before her death that night.

The filly’s dam was bred back to Middleground several times and produced one of the stallion’s best subsequent horses, the stakes winner Disperse, who also ran third in the 1960 Belmont Stakes.
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Frank Mitchell lives on a farm where he writes and raises horses about 30 minutes from Keeneland. He's written two books on horse-racing and writes a regular column on Thoroughbred bloodlines for Daily Racing Form that can be found at drf.com.

Saturday Night No Mas

I don't know if you're aware of this, but the entire first season of SNL is now available on ITunes. I learned this myself last night entirely by chance and immediately downloaded the Richard Pryor episode, which was famously run on a ten-second delay lest ole Rich get superblue on a moment's notice.

This revelation got to me wondering - who was the first athlete to host SNL? I ran through the roster from the first season and saw no sports figures (some of the people they had hosting that shit the first season too... Buck Henry evidently was BIG back then), so I set out to do some research only to quickly discover, as I so often do these days, that Wikipedia had already done it for me.

I have to pat myself on the back, because my guess was that it had to be O.J., and although it wasn't, he was second. The first is utterly inexplicable to me - Fran Tarkenton, on January 29, 1977. My initial thought was that it had to be because he was hosting That's Incredible, which as anyone of a certain age remembers was a stratospheric phenomenon for about six months back in the dizzle. But That's Incredible didn't premiere until 1980. Tarkenton wasn't doing any media at the time as far as I know - maybe some ads. But primarily he was just the undersized scrambling quarterback for the Vikings who couldn't win the big one. I mean, don't get me wrong - he was a great player and a big star. But myself, I don't remember him being quite the level of star that gets chosen to host SNL.

As I mentioned, O.J. was the next athlete to host the show, February 25, 1978 (followed by Bill Russell of all people on November 3, 1979). I couldn't find any clips of the Juice's outing in '78, but I did find this clip of him on an anniversary show looking back at an SNL moment he evidently participated in from 1977. Looks funny too.

The Night the Lights Went On at Wrigley

Nineteen years ago today, Wrigley Field saw its first night game ever, as the Cubs took on the Phils under the lights in a game that would only last three and a half innings before rain prematurely ended the evening. The gods, evidently, do not like it when you tinker with tradition.

The Cubs were up 3-1 when the storms came - Ryne Sandberg had smacked a three-run dinger off the Phils' starter Kevin Gross. In that Philly was involved, you can imagine that my primary interest in this historic event was to reminisce about the Phils' lineup that night, but of course in that it was a rainout there's no boxscore. So I had to turn to the night before, August 7th, 1988, when the Phils beat the Cubs 7-4 in the last day game of the day-games-only era at Wrigley. Starting eights are below:

PHILLIES
Phil Bradley - LF
Bob Dernier - CF
Juan Samuel - 2B
Mike Schmidt - 3B
Lance Parrish - C
Chris James - RF
Ricky Jordan - 1B
Jackie Gutierrez - SS


Cubs
Mitch Webster - CF
Ryne Sandberg - 2B
Mark Grace - 1B
Andre Dawson - RF
Rafael Palmeiro - LF
Vance Law - 3B
Jody Davis - C
Shawon Dunston - SS

Wow. I mean, wow. That is an ugly team the Fightins put out on the field. Ooh man, those were lean years at the Vet. The Bob Dernier/Juan Samuel era (and may I just interject here that I am a big fan of the '88 Topps cards, especially that Samuel jammie up there). Actually, '88 would be Samuel's last year in a Phils uniform, and the last full season for a much more important Phil, ole Schmitty. Mike Schmidt, just two years removed from his third MVP award, suffered through an injury plagued '88 and then abruptly retired in May of 1989. He just wasn't the type who was going to let himself suck for too long out there, and I dig that about him.

On the Cubs side, well, they had a nice-looking team, one of the cursed bunches over the years who certainly had the firepower to win it all and just didn't get it done. Don Zimmer was in his first year at the helm, The Hawk was in the midst of an MVP season (and even deeper in the midst of what hopefully will turn out to be a Hall-of-Fame career), a 23-year-old Rafael Palmeiro was emerging as a dangerous hitter (although not yet a power-hitter... hmm), and Grace and Sandberg were in their first season together as the right side of the Cubs' infield, a combination that would continue for nine more years. This is the foundation of the squad that would win the NL East the very next season, only to get spanked by the Giants in the NLCS.

A final note on the pitching in this August 7th Cubs/Phils game - in his last of four seasons with the Phils, the great submarine captain Kent Tekulve came in to relieve starter Dave Palmer, followed by closer Steve Bedrosian, Bedrock, who was coming off his Cy Young campaign in 1987. And for the Cubs? Well, their starter was a young junkballing southpaw who was suffering through a miserable 9-15 year... a 25-year-old by the name of Jamie Moyer.

Classic No Mas - Barry Bonds says he's standoffish because of death threats?

(There's not much to say about Bonds and the record that we haven't already said, so today this open letter that we printed to Bad Bad Barry back in March seems particularly appropriate.)
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"If I don't keep a level head, how's the next person going to handle it? If Hank didn't keep his head clear, how was I going to deal with it?" - Barry Bonds

Dear Barry,
Let us be very, VERY clear about this, lest you harbor any doubts. We worship Henry Aaron. We collect Henry Aaron baseball cards like they're gold bullion. We think Henry Aaron is one of the true unsung heroes of the civil rights movement and the entire 20th century.

You, sir, are no Henry Aaron. There is NO comparison between your pursuit of his all-time home run record and his pursuit of Babe Ruth's record. If you are expecting that this recent revelation about threats on your life will elicit such comparisons, and a concomitant sympathy and admiration, prepare yourself to be deeply disappointed. If you have received death threats, we are sincerely sorry. But let's face it - at this point your veracity is questionable, and the historical implication you're hinting at by even raising the issue and invoking Aaron's name is self-serving and preposterous. We have long made our peace with the fact that you, in all of your roided-up, churlish splendor, are going to surpass the record set by such a courageous, dignified American as Henry Aaron. But we still draw a distinction between the two achievements as clearly as we do those of Ben Johnson and Jesse Owens. We believe that history will do the same.

Sincerely,
No Mas

Zestfully Filthy

On this day in 1967, Jason Grimsley was born in Cleveland, Texas. Young Jason would grow up to become a relief pitcher for the Indians, Angels, Yankees, and Diamondbacks as well as one of the most underappreciated cheaters the game has ever known.

To begin with, no mere Niekro could ever compete with the truly Roald Dahlian ring to his villainous name: Grimsley. And while performance enhancers are a dime a dozen these days, will another player ever climb through an air conditioning duct to steal a corked bat from the umpires dressing room? Even if Grimsley failed to realize that bringing a replacement bat with a signature that was not Albert Belle's might tip off the boys in blue, that is an achievement that will stand the test of time.

Back in those Cleveland days, Jason Grimsley seemed like a crook a Goodfella could love ("Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut"), but in the end he proved that there is truly no honor among theives. Less Blinky Palermo than Rafael Palmeiro, when they put the squeeze on Jason, he cracked liked an eggshell. And so mister name namer, in honor of your 40th birthday, one of your so-called friends would like to sing you a little song:

K.O.W. - K.O.Y.?

Our No Mas Knockout of the Week is from this past Saturday night, and is unquestionably an early candidate for the Knockout of the Year. It came on the undercard of the Diaz/Morales fight when IBF junior flyweight (that's 108 pounds folks) champion Ulises Solis knocked out Rodel Mayol in the eighth round of their title bout with a lightning-quick, and if I may so, bizarre one-two. Mayol had the champ on the canvas in the sixth and was still stalking him in this round. Early on he catches Solis with a monster overhand right that prompts the chest-thumping show of bravado that is universal language for "oh yeah that was a big shot." Soon afterwards, Solis ceases thumping his chest and instead thumps Mayol, following up a stiff left jab with a right that is half a cross and half a karate chop. The combined effect of the two blows leave Mayol crawling around like an infant who's all drunk on Hennessey. As his handlers lead the dazed victim back to his corner, the announcer points out that Mayol has a smile on his face and says, "even he admires the punch." I, uh, disagree with that interpretation. It seems clear to me that holms is smiling due to a brief but severe bout of retardification.

Saratoga -- 50 years ago -- the Travers

Fifty years ago, the Irish-bred colt Gallant Man won the historic Travers Stakes at Saratoga racetrack. Half a century ago, crowds of racing fans were drawn to the famous spa in upstate New York, and later this month, large crowds of fans will watch the renewal of the Travers, which is likely to feature a rematch between this year’s Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense and Preakness winner Curlin.

Gallant Man didn’t have another classic winner to contend with in his running of the Travers, although the Triple Crown had been split three ways in 1957, just as it was this year. Gallant Man probably should have won two of the races, but he lost the Kentucky Derby in one of the oddest finishes in the race’s history. The famous jockey Bill Shoemaker (pictured on the horse above) rode Gallant Man, and their primary opposition was Bold Ruler, Round Table, and Iron Liege. Before the Derby, Gallant Man’s owner, Ralph Lowe, had dreamt that his jockey misjudged the finish and his colt lost the race. And in fact, that is just what happened. In a momentary misjudgment of the finish line, Shoemaker paused – almost imperceptibly – in riding Gallant Man to the wire, and Iron Liege won by a nose. Round Table was third, and favored Bold Ruler was fourth.

In the 1957 Preakness, Gallant Man – who was a peanut of a classic winner, standing only 5’ 1” at the withers [top of a horse’s shoulders] – sat out the race, which was won by the grander, faster Bold Ruler. They had a rematch in the Belmont. Gallant Man’s stablemate, Bold Nero, raced near Bold Ruler through the first half of the race to keep the favorite from relaxing on the lead, and Gallant Man blew away from his competition to win by eight lengths and set a new American record of 2:26.60 for a mile and a half. That record stood until 1973, when Bold Ruler’s greatest son, a Triple Crown-winner by the name of Secretariat, won the race by 31 lengths in the time of 2:24.
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Frank Mitchell lives on a farm where he writes and raises horses about 30 minutes from Keeneland. He's written two books on horse-racing and writes a regular column on Thoroughbred bloodlines for Daily Racing Form that can be found at drf.com.

Where HAVE you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

Has the image of any 20th century American icon experienced a more enormous fall from grace than Joe DiMaggio? Talking about this with I-Berg at lunch the other day, the only name that came to mind was JFK, who indeed has seen his name dragged through the mud in the past 20 years, but who also accomplished so much as President that the mere revelation of his womanizing and overall personal ruthlessness did not prove quite enough to entirely tarnish his memory.

I suppose the same could be said for DiMaggio at the purest level - can the tag of "misanthropic cheapskate" ever really put a dent in Joe D.'s epic accomplishments on the diamond? Of course not. Then again, DiMaggio as cultural symbol transcended those accomplishments so thoroughly that his fall - from icon of innate grace and American restraint to parsimonious prick - from "where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?" to "where's my wallet you son of a bitch?" - seems about as dramatic as any that I can think of in the gossip-mad age of the tell-all biography. The plight of the poet Philip Larkin comes to mind - the posthumous publication of his letters brought with it the sad revelation that Larkin was a bitter, racist, misogynist toad much enamored of big boobs and potty humor. Not a winning portrait by any means, but my feeling on this count always has been that if you read Larkin's poetry and couldn't get yourself at least halfway to such a revelation of the man himself, well, you aren't much of a reader.

This maybe is what makes the Joe D. revelations so profound - the picture that emerges of him now seems so contrary to the picture that made him the Elegant American Hero in the first place. And let's face it - if the tendency in the post-war era was to create impossibly perfect and elegant heroes, the tendency today is to deflate them with every sharp instrument at our disposal. We don't want fantasies of perfection today - we want to be reassured that our own glaring imperfections are normal and acceptable, and we also want to take great schadenfreudian glee in finding that those who aspire to perfection are in fact the same petty, greedy scoundrels that we know ourselves to be.

So we have pieces like the one in the recent New Yorker, "The Lost Poems of DiMaggio," a haiku series based on the recent diaries that mock the Clipper's now legendary Scroogery:

Long line of children
Want to have my autograph.
That'll be ten bucks.

Cab to the airport
Driver took the long way there
Won't tip that bastard.

Etc. Trust me, the shit is very funny and I laughed out loud. But I felt uneasy as well. I thought of a more famous DiMaggio pop cultural appearance, the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer sees Joe D. in the coffee shop and tries to distract him from drinking his coffee. Ridiculous as it was, this Seinfeld treatment still in its way painted a picture of a deeply private and dignified man. If the show were written today, undoubtedly the joke would center on DiMaggio refusing to tip his waitress.

The same issue of The New Yorker with the DiMaggio haikus includes an article by Louis Menand about the practice of biography writing, an article that I couldn't help but associate with Richard Ben Cramer's mean-spirited bio of Joe D., the true Alamo of the campaign to debunk the DiMaggio myth. In this article, Menand picks apart the self-importance of two recent books, written by biographers, about the task of the biographer. Along the way he points out in his typically terse asides just how dubious the entire concept of "biography" really is, based as it so often is on questionable evidence - letters, second-hand memories, "turning point" theories, diaries - that few of us ever would wish to be judged upon ourselves. In the end, Menand summarizes the biographical impulse, both in production and consumption, in the most cynical of terms, terms that I can't help but think would have earned a solemn nod from The Great Non-Tipper himself:

People enjoy judging other people's lives. They enjoy it excessively. It's not one of the species' more attractive addictions, and, on the whole, it's probably better to indulge it on the life of a person you have never met.

El Terrible

El Terrible, Erik Morales, makes his return to the ring tomorrow night against David Diaz in search of his fourth title belt in four weight classes. The fight is being billed as "The War for 4," and yet there's another more pressing number four that you would think might be occupying the minds of fight fans going into this bout - the four fights that El Terrible has lost in his last five trips to the ring.

Granted, three of those fights were against the best competition the sport has to offer - Marco Antonio Barrera in 2004, and then two losses to Manny Pacquiao in 2006. But it's the fourth loss that gives more cause for concern, Morales' defeat by unanimous decision to Philly's own Zahir Raheem back in the fall of 2005. Anyone who saw that fight saw an Erik Morales whose time had passed and whose skills had diminished precipitously. He reached deep into his heart for a valiant loss to Pac Man in his next fight, and then met Pacquiao again last November and looked utterly listless, quitting on the canvas in the third round, an unimaginable submission for Morales in his prime, the act of a man with absolutely nothing left to give.

No fighter likes to go out on such a humiliation (video from the third Pacquiao fight is below) but one wonders how Morales expects to fare at 135 when he was being so easily outmuscled at 130. He claims that making weight at 130 was sapping his strength, and yet his only prior trip to the lightweight ranks was against Raheem, where he got thoroughly pantsed by a B-level fighter. Morales is a true Mexican legend, in a class with Chavez, and Olivares, and his sworn enemy Barrera. He's been in the ring as a pro since he was 16 years old, and he's participated in some of the most memorable and brutal wars of his generation. Now, as it seems we must do in boxing with every bona fide legend, we as fans settle in for the inevitably painful fifth act of Morales' career. Let's just hope it doesn't drag on.

Birthday Nation

An impressively odd roster of birthdays to celebrate today, including - an Olympic gold medalist, an Olympic silver medalist, a famed but failed American Olympian and the first ever Winter Olympian from Madagascar, two baseball pitchers (one a noted knuckleballer, one who lost a game after pitching 12 shutout innings) and a speedy centerfielder, Brazilian, Portuguese and Irish footballers of note, a dope-smoking Ultimate Fighter, an anvil-tossing professional wrestler, the namesake of the AFC Championship trophy, the man who lost perhaps the most famous U.S. Open match ever played, a Flame who had his best years in Chicago, a retired three who had his best years in Phoenix, and, last but not least, Lawrence of Arabia and Archie Bunker.

Classic No Mas - Tantrum and McBrat

Twenty-one years ago today, John McEnroe and Tatum O'Neal were married in New York City. Tatum's famous father, Ryan, was barred from the ceremony, having stolen one of Mac's favorite words and called him a "jerk."

It was a marriage made in tabloid heaven. They lived the high life, cavorted with Mick Jagger and Jack Nicholson, bought a house from Johnny Carson for a million bucks and three tennis lessons. They also took loads of drugs and generally loathed each other. According to Tatum, Mac beat her and was frequently in "a pot fog." According to both of them, Tatum became a reclusive heroin addict who was unable to care for herself or their three children. Tatum recounted all of this (much to Mac's dismay) in her ultimate "oh poor rich talented me" celeb tell-all, "A Paper Life," in which she also writes about being molested and dragged to celebrity orgies and all manner of other shit that sounds terribly sad and that nonetheless she might have kept to herself.

They seperated in 1992, reportedly because Tatum wanted to go back to her film career and Mac wanted her to stay home with the kids. Years of ugly custody battles ensued, with Mac insisting that Tatum was unfit to be a mother because of her drug habits. Mac is now married to rocker Patty Smyth ("shooting at the walls of heartache..."), and he frequently performs, quite horribly we gather, in his own rock group, the Johnny Smyth Band.

And Tatum? One can only imagine.