AUGUSTA, Ga.
The Sunday Column comes to you this morning from the Masters — or, as I like to call it, the Sudafed Invitational.
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No joke: I’ve been so stuffed up the past week that I’ve been signing my credit card receipts as “Abe Pollen.”
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I was hoping Steve Flesch would miss the cut, just so I could write that he “went the way of all Flesch.”
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Or that Augusta “was housing a Flesch-eating virus.”
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Yeah, I know those last two jokes were lame, but I’m just trying to Flesch out the column.
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Just wondering: Has Ernie Els played his second shot on the 11th hole yet?
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Ernie spent so much time in the woods, I thought they were filming an episode of “Animal Planet.”
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Unless I miss my guess, we’ve seen the last of the 15 unders at the Masters. Augusta National is wickedly difficult now. About all that’s missing is crocodiles in Rae’s Creek.
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If Langer rallies to win this thing at 46, they should make a movie about it — “Bern Hard,” maybe.
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Or picture this: Paddy Harrington shoots a second straight 68 (to finish at minus-4), hangs out on the practice tee while the leaders melt down the stretch and sneaks off with the green jacket.
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All things considered, though, I’ll take Phil Mickelson this afternoon. Why?
1. Because Tiger Woods is too far back to torment him.
2. Because he’s been under par in his last five final rounds at Augusta (71, 71, 70, 71, 68).
3. Because he’s looong past due.
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Trivia question: Mike Weir last year became the first Canadian to win the Masters. But what player from north of the border has had the best track record at Augusta, tying for fourth in both ’58 and ’59 and posting five top-11s in a dozen starts? (Answer below.)
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News item: IRS agents seize the results and samples of drug tests on selected baseball players from a Las Vegas lab.
Comment: It won’t be quite the same now when you hear a broadcaster say, “That Barry Bonds, he’s a specimen.”
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They don’t have pitching careers like George Bamberger’s anymore. The former Orioles coach (and Brewers and Mets manager), who died last week at 80, won 213 games in the minors — and none in the majors. Bambi had several sips of coffee with the O’s and New York Giants in the ’50s, making 14 appearances, but wound up with a 0-0 record.
In the bushes, though, he was a formidable moundsman, as they used to say. In 15 of his 18 seasons, he had at least 11 victories, and he threw a no-hitter for Ottawa in ’51. In ’58, his best year (15-11, league leading 2.45 ERA), he set a Pacific Coast League mark by going 68⅔ innings without a walk. I’d love to know — but probably never will — if any pitcher has won 213 games in the minors since Bamberger hung ’em up.
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Bambi’s career was similar to ex-Dodgers skipper Tommy Lasorda’s. Lasorda won 136 games in the minors — and zero in the majors (despite two call-ups by Brooklyn and another by the Kansas City Athletics). He didn’t pitch any no-hitters, but he did strike out 25 batters in a 15-inning game with Schenectady in C ball. My 13-year-old, who dug up all this information (and e-mailed it to me in Augusta), noted, “Lasorda led two leagues in wild pitches and had six seasons in which he walked more batters than he struck out. Ouch.”
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No team really deserves the first pick in the draft, but better the Caps than somebody else.
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Speaking of our hockey team, when they went to the Stanley Cup finals in ’98 under Ron Wilson, they won five consecutive overtime games. So I’ll just point out that Wilson’s San Jose Sharks took the opener of their series the other night against St. Louis … in OT.
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Question to actor Eugene Levy in the May issue of Premiere magazine: “What made you decide to go into comedy?”
Levy: “I found in high school that it was the best way to get attention. People responded to my sense of humor, so much so that they elected me president of the student council. It was better than being a football hero. And less painful.”
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Premiere also directed me to this funny Web site, cinemorgue.com. Ever wonder how many times John Wayne died in the movies? (The answer is four.) Cinemorgue.com will tell you — and also give you the names of the films and the circumstances in which his character perished.
This being a sports column, I decided to check out the death rates of some well-known athlete-actors. My findings:
• Buster Crabbe, ’30s swimming star: Bought the farm in the 1947 flick, “Last of the Redmen.”
• Arnold Schwarzenegger, bodybuilder: Has checked out of five movies — all three “Terminator” epics, plus “End of Days” and “The Running Man” (in which he was “impaled on a spiked wall at the end of a fight with Jesse Ventura”). Arnold still trails Vincent Price (14) by nine, though.
• O.J. Simpson, football Hall of Famer: O.J. might have escaped the noose in his murder trial, but not in “The Cassandra Crossing” and “No Place to Hide.” (In the latter, he’s “killed by hit men when he tries to fight them off and buy time for Drew Barrymore to escape.”)
• Carl Weathers, pro football player: Expired in “Rocky IV” (as Apollo Creed, after being “beaten to death during a boxing match with Dolph Lundgren”), “Predator” (“impaled, then dismembered, by the Predator … after first having his arm shot off”) and “Happy Gilmore” (“accidentally falls out of a window while backing away when Adam Sandler presents him with the head of the alligator that had bitten off Carl’s hand years before”).
• Fred Williamson, pro football player: Cashed in his chips in “Black Caesar” and “From Dusk to Dawn.” “Black Caesar” “was so successful that the sequel, ’Hell up in Harlem,’ retroactively revealed that Fred’s character was only wounded [in the first movie], but director/writer Larry Cohen has stated that this was originally intended as the character’s death.”)
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Sadly, the list of actors at cinemorgue.com isn’t complete. So I wasn’t able to find out how many times Woody Strode, who played for the Los Angeles Rams in the ’40s, kicked the bucket in a film. (Pity, because Woody made a ton of movies.) I do remember him dying in “Spartacus” after dueling with fellow gladiator Kirk Douglas (though it wasn’t Kirk who did him in).
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The biggest omission was Jim Brown. As all sports fans (should) know, the legendary running back was gunned down at the end of “The Dirty Dozen,” but that probably wasn’t the only time he was rubbed out. Brown played a lot of rough, tough characters who were always flirting with death.
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There’s a hysterical scene in “Sleepless in Seattle” that mentions Brown’s demise in “The Dirty Dozen.” Tom Hanks and his brother-in-law are making fun of Tom’s sister getting all teary-eyed about a movie, and they have the following exchange:
Hanks: “I cried at the end of ’The Dirty Dozen.’”
Brother-in-law: “Who didn’t?”
Hanks: “Jim Brown was throwing these hand grenades down these airshafts. And Richard Jaeckel and Lee Marvin … [he fakes crying] were sitting on top of this armored personnel carrier, dressed up like Nazis. …”
Brother-in-law [also pretending to cry]: “Stop, stop!”
Hanks: “And Trini Lopez!”
Brother-in-law: “Yes, Trini Lopez!”
Hanks: “He busted his neck while they were parachuting down behind the Nazi lines. …”
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C’mon, I can’t be the only person who thinks that scene’s a scream.
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Is the name of Virginia Tech’s new women’s basketball coach really Beth Dunkenberger? Gotta love that.
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You don’t suppose she likes jam sandwiches, do you?
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Dunkenberger’s hiring means that the football coach and women’s basketball coach at Tech come from Virginia towns with a combined population of 1,400. Dunkenberger is from Shawsville (1,000 inhabitants), and Frank Beamer is from Fancy Gap (less than 400).
“According to Frank,” my Hokies source says, “Fancy Gap is so small it’s considered a suburb of Hillsville (whose residents number 2,000).”
Dunkenberger at her first press conference: “There was a rumor floating around that we just wanted to help attendance, so you brought me back because you knew Shawville would show up at the games.”
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Answer to trivia question: Stan Leonard has had more success in the Masters than any other Canadian golfer. From 1955 to ’61, Leonard finished eighth, 24th, 11th, fourth, fourth, ninth and 15th. He won three times on the PGA Tour — the Greater Greensboro Open in ’57, the Tournament of Champions in ’58 and the Western Open in ’60. (Half credit if you guessed George Knudson or Al Balding. I mean, at least you got the country right.)
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And finally, booting a Russian team out of the Little League World Series for using players outside its area is like disqualifying 74-year-old Arnie Palmer from the Masters for carrying too many clubs.
Well, sorta.
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