IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Put this in the vault for “Best Sports Photos of 2018”

Raptor, The Best Medicine

In Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan scored 35 first-half points, a total that was greatly abetted by his then-record six three-pointers. After burying his sixth over Cliff Robinson in the second quarter, Jordan turned to Magic Johnson, who was part of the NBC courtside broadcast crew, and shrugged. It was as if to say, “Even I don’t believe what I’m capable of.”

LeBron James has reached Shrug-Level playoff capability. His running left-side lay-up style 15-foot game winner against Toronto on Saturday was so nonchalant that, well, there was actually a total absence of chalant to the feat.

Conversely, didn’t the Raptors, now down 3-0 in this series, learn anything from watching the Pacers series. You always double, double, double LeBron in situations like this. He’s a fundamentals guy, he’ll pass out of a double team. J.R. Smith or Kevin Love can beat you, sure, but make them do it. Or make him give it up to Kyle Korver or George Hill or whatever mook is on the floor. Just don’t play iso ball with one of the greatest players who ever lived. Another week of Susie B.’s Sweet Pea euphoria crashing down on us like a world-record wave in Portugal is more than we can bear.

2. Earning Their Pinstripes

It was nice when the Yankees swept four straight from the Minnesota Twins, the last win coming on a Gary Sanchez walk-off home run in a 9th inning that began with the Yanks trailing 3-1 on a getaway Thursday afternoon game. That stretched the W streak to six in a row.

But then the Yanks had to hit the road to play seven road games versus the top two clubs in the A.L. West, one of them the World Series champs, and then follow that with three against the A.L. Central-leading Cleveland Indians. All without a day off.

So how did those 10 games go? New York went 9-1, capped off by Sunday’s come-from-behind 7-4 win at Yankee Stadium (they trailed 4-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth) that ended when rookie Gleyber Torres smashed a 3-2 pitch over the wall in dead center.

On Friday night Miguel Andujar, another rookie infielder who was not on the roster on Opening Day, hit a game-winning walk-off single.

On Friday Torres, 21, whom the Yanks acquired two summers ago when he was a prospect by trading Aroldis Chapman, whom they now have back on the roster, became the youngest Yankee in 49 years to hit a home run. Yesterday Torres became the youngest Yankee to ever hit a walk-off home run. And he’s the only known position player since 1900 whose team is 14-1 since he was called up to play for them.

The Yankees have gone from the Torre Dynasty to the Torres Dynasty, you might say. Anyway, they’re 15-1 over the past 16 and yet still in second place behind the Sawx, who come to the Bronx this week for a three-game series beginning tomorrow. It’s going to be a fun summer in the A.L. East.

3. Hawaii: April Showers Bring May Flows*

*The judges will also accept, “Hot Rocks” and “Hawaii Volcan-O”

It was only three weeks ago that a storm dropped two feet of rain on the island of Kauai, necessitating the obligatory interviews of shirtless surfer Laird Hamilton, who came to the aid of many.

Last week on the big island of Hawaii, the Kilauea volcano erupted and it has been spewing hot magma ever since. More than two dozen homes have been destroyed and more than 500 tourist lava selfies have been uploaded on Instragram. Meanwhile, the release of toxic sulfur dioxide gas have made much of the surrounding area smell like your junior year chemistry lab.

4. A Hero For Wildlife

We only caught the last five minutes of this 60 Minutes feature on wildlife photographer Thomas Mangelsen, but anyone who is cool enough to get Jane Goodall to hang out with him on a riverbank in mid-winter has something going for him. If you’re emotionally mature enough to appreciate wildlife beyond posting click-baity “Shark Nearly Attacks Paddleobarder!” or “What Are All These Cougars Doing In Colorado Backyards?” stories, take a few minutes to watch and appreciate this.

And we want to give special props to the producer of this segment, Denise Schrier Cetta, for staging a fadeout shot that was worthy of an Oscar-winning film. Just magnificent.

5. Say It Ain’t So, Joe

Above: Joe Cool

This is what Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon, 64, looked like when he was leading the Cubbies to their first World Series championship in 108 years back in 2016.

And this is what Joe Maddon looks like today. To each his own, of course, but those of us who are fellow Gray Rights advocates are disappointed. Did you lose a bet or something, skipper? All Maddon will say is, “It’s going to get darker.” Ew.

Reserves

Thank You, Neil Cavuto


Another Foxy sees the light about the president….

*****

Mud, Sweat and Cheers

For the sixth consecutive year, the favorite to win the Kentucky Derby wins the Kentucky Derby. Justify, trained by Bob Baffert, took the lead before the far turn and never looked back in the wettest Run For The Roses ever. The other note is that Justify never raced as a two year-old, although neither did you.

******

Confetti don Tutti

Speaking of unwelcome eruptions….

The confetti rained down on the court prematurely in Game 3 between the Celtics and Sixers Saturday night, an ideal metaphor for an OT game in which the young, talented but not very bright Sixers committed three careless turnovers in the half court in the waning moments of the contest and ALSO put up an offensive rebound put-back try with :15 left and the lead in overtime.

Simply put, the not-so-smart Sixers ran into a far more intelligent adversary in Brad Stevens, who designed two game-winning out-of-bounds plays, one at the end of regulation (only a lovely Marco Bellinelli fallaway corner shot spared the Sixers and forced OT) and the other at the end of O.T.

Go to school, Joel (Goodson, not Embiid; it’s from Risky Business). Go learn something. That’s the thought we had after watching the end of Game 3.

Music 101

This Is America

After failing his audition at Saturday Night Live a few years ago, Donald Glover has done okay for his self. He has a critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning hit in Atlanta, he hosted SNL this weekend, and as his musical alter ego, Childish Gambino, he just released this song and video that already has 10 16 million hits in one weekend. I’m still not sure if the NRA is going to love or hate this, although since it’s black people he’s gunning down, I can guess the answer.

What makes this song so powerful? The blending of uplifting African tribal rhythms with the shots-fired reality of urban America.

Remote Patrol

Capitals at Penguins, Game 6

7 p.m. NBC Sports Net

Can Ove finally take down the Penguins in a postseason series? The Penguins are 0-4 against the flightless fowl in Ovechkin’s career in the playoffs, including being knocked out each of the past three years. He’s one game away as the Caps lead 3-2 but this rink is in Pittsburgh.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

Starting Five

The King and SI

After 29 years at the magazine and website, Peter King opts not to renew his contract at Sports Illustrated and joins NBC Sports (and NBCSports.com). Sure, it’s a landmark moment in the life of the franchise because when Peter joined SI, there was no place else in sports (ESPN included) that any upwardly mobile journalist would desire to work. SI was THE destination.

ESPN and the web changed all that, of  course. And SI‘s foot-dragging approach to embracing the web (ironically, NBC Sports got into the web game WAYYY LATE…I was among the original group of hires in spring of 2006) but now, a dozen years later, they’ll finally come of age.

Peter was, deservedly, the highest-paid person at Sports Illustrated the past few years. Not because he was the best writer, but because he had made himself the most relevant. How did he do that? By embracing, at a time when most other SI senior writers told the editors that they did not have the time or inclination to write for it, the website. Peter understood early the freedom that writing for the web provided (note: somewhere buried deep in the SI Vault or the plethora of blog posts I wrote for SI.com, enthusiastically, but that never touched the same audience) and he carved out a remarkable niche for himself. He pursued it wholeheartedly because the web was the one place that had the space for all of his thoughts on both the NFL and life beyond it. It was refreshing.

King was the first and still only writer at SI whose popularity spawned an independent, stand-alone website, MMQB

It helps that Peter is a remarkably good guy, cherubic and personable, genuinely interested in other people. He’s not soft; far from it. He’s just not adversarial as a default mode. He’ll be just fine at NBC, where Sunday Night Football is the NUMBER ONE NETWORK PRIME TIME SHOW in the country annually.

As for SI? Where does the mag and website go from here? There are still a few vets there who do remarkable work—Tim Layden, Jon Wertheim, Andy Staples, to name a few—but the pre-millennial stamp of this publication has almost entirely vanished. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but much like rock and roll music, the question I ask is, Who has stepped in to fill the void? (and don’t tell me The Lumineers or I’ll have to slap you).

2. The Path Of Priest Resistance

Like any good Jesuit priest, Fr. Pat Conroy, S.J., is a smart and somewhat defiant cleric. So when Speaker of the House Paul Ryan asked for his resignation, fully expecting that Conroy was like one of his GOP toadies who bends to the will of any Republican who polls higher (See: Trump v. Ryan), Conroy asked, “For cause?”

And when Ryan could not provide cause, Conroy said, “Well, F___ that, you’re going to have to fire me.” And Ryan, well, we all know who he is, he backed down like the coward he is. So Fr. Pat remains as the House prayer guy or whatever his job is, which let’s face it, is a total sinecure anyway.

All I know is, usually when two Irish guys skirmish (and you can’t spell “skirmish” without “Irish”), both guys arrive willing to take a punch. Not here. Paul Ryan is the worst fighting Irish I’ve seen since Charlie Weis’ 2007 outfit.

3.  Cash Mob

Yesterday on Interstate 70 in Indianapolis, the back doors of a Brinks truck flew open and as much as $600,00 in cash flew out the back and onto the road. Drivers stopped and stuffed their pockets as did anyone passing by. Brinks and the Indiana State Police are asking people to return the money. Good luck with that.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate dipped below 4% for the first time since 2000, but methinks someone (or maybe two guys) just tilted that figure in the opposite direction.

4. Let Love Rule

Almost (Hi, Susie B.!) all of us have become inured to LeBron’s dominance this spring, because last night The King posted his third 40-plus point game in the past five, but all anyone is talking about is how Kevin Love scored 31 points to lead the Cavs to an easy Game 2 win in Toronto.

It was nice to see T-Wolves era Kevin reemerge. Most of the time since he’s worn a Cavs jersey, Love’s play has been so tepid that I’ve redubbed him “Kevin Like.” Is it only a Punxsatawney Phil thing, or can the Cavs actually have a legit second option? This was the best Cleveland has looked this postseason and suddenly we all have to gird ourselves for the possibility of Cavs-Dubs IV.

5. Clicks Versus Classics

If you are into that sort of thing, my old co-worker at Sports Illustrated, Jeff Pearlman, recently released his 48th podcast about writers talking shop, Two Writers Slinging Yang, and his guest was another co-worker of ours, Steve Rushin (we’ll delve into why he had 47 guests before Steve Rushin another day…that’s just criminal).

Anyway, we’re not podcast consumers but we did listen to most of this (because we remember most of the tales first-hand or were there for them, I suppose). One anecdote Steve shared resonates with me: He told of the adventure he had writing a piece about golfing in Greenland and that when he returned, a high-ranking editor waved some market research at him and informed him, “This will probably be the least-read story in the magazine this year.”

And Steve’s retort, and I’m paraphrasing, was, “I’m interested in writing the story that people will be talking about three to five to 10 years from now. I can write 10 NFL stories if you like, but what can I write that will have a lasting impact?”

Amen. Think about that as you click on to your next “Way Too Early 2019 NFL Mock Draft” piece today.

Reserves

Eruption

A volcano explosion in Hawaii this morning, and record-setting geyser eruptions in Yellowstone earlier this week. The U.S. landscape is letting off steam. Can you blame it?

AL East 

Gleyber Torres, who was called up on the second day of this 12-1 streak, is batting .317 and got the hit that brought in the go-ahead run in the ninth inning yesterday

Remember when the Boston Red Sox were 17-2 and the New York Yankees were 9-9 and it looked as if the Sawx, even without Dustin Pedroia, were going to run away with baseball’s most top-heavy division?

The Sox are 5-7 since then and the Yankees are 12-1. New York just finished up a 6-1 road trip at the two stadiums where they’ve had the most trouble in recent years, Anaheim and Houston (they lost all 4 games of the ALCS played in Houston last October, as you’ll recall). Yesterday afternoon at Minute Maid Park the Bombers came back from 2 runs down in the ninth to lead 6-5, and then with the tying run on 2nd in the bottom half of the inning for Houston, Aroldis Chapman struck out AL MVP Jose Altuve on three straight pitches, all of them canned heat thrown right down the heart of the plate. It may have only been May, but it was thrilling.

FWIW: the Yanks’ lone loss since April 20, a period in which they have not had a day off, occurred Monday night in Houston. They arrived in town at 5:30 a.m. after playing ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” in Anaheim and then lost 2-1. They proceeded to shut out the World Series champs each of the next two nights before taking yesterday’s game to close out that series, 3-1.

It’s only May 4th, but look out. The Yanks are scary. Even scarier than the experts thought they’d be.

Music 101

Starlight

Back in the days before we realized that good band after good band was not naturally obliged to happen (or “before we got old”), we attended a “festival” on a rainy June Saturday in Giants Stadium where the headliner was Radiohead and the band directly ahead of them was Muse (Radiohead JayVee). Here in the U.S. the British band never fully got the love that they’ve garnered in Europe and even Asia, perhaps because they never had that one breakout hit song (even Franz Ferdinand and Snow Patrol did that). Anyway, this is a pretty fantastic live performance and you probably know this song even if you did not realize you did: Muse has a few songs like that, but you always come back to Matt Bellamy’s tell-tale falsetto (although that could be a song from Keane, too, come to think of it).

Remote Patrol

Rockets at Jazz

Game 3

10:30 p.m. ESPN

The referees had the temerity to call a lane violation on LeBron James in Game 1 at Toronto; maybe they’ll have the balls to call a push-off on James Harden tonight. I mean, I wouldn’t stay up late explicitly for that reason, but if you are up, well….

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour


 

Starting Five

Fox News Exposes Fake News

Last night Rudy Giuliani went on TV with Sean Hannity and for reasons known only to him, told Michael Cohen’s other famous client that his boss, Donald Trump, had repaid Cohen the $130,000 that Cohen had paid Stormy Daniels. Giuliani’s assertion, at the very least, exposes Trump as a liar (NO!) since only last month Trump claimed to know nothing about the payment to Daniels.

So, if Trump knew nothing about the payment, how would he know to pay it back?

Not satisfied with setting one inferno, Giuliani then told Hannity that Trump fired Comey because he wouldn’t assure Trump that he was not being investigated about Russia, which is explicitly what Trump said he HAD NOT fired Comey over.

So what does Donald do now? Does he fire Giuliani for “lying”? or does he keep Giuliani and attempt to mansplain how what Giuliani said was not a golden shower of incriminating revelations?

2. Own Goal Header

In the second leg of the Champions League semifinal between Liverpool and A.S. Roma,  Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren goes to clear the ball out of the box and instead ricochets it off teammate James Milner‘s melon. The ball then flies into the goal.

Roma won 4-2 at home, but since Liverpool had won the first leg 5-2 and the away goals were the same, Liverpool advances to meet Real Madrid in the final, May 26 in Kiev.

3. The Igor Sanction

The Phoenix Suns, who had the NBA’s worst record this season (21-61), have just hired Utah Jazz assistant coach Igor Kokoskov. A Serbian native, Kokoskov, 46, becomes the first NBA head coach born outside North America.

A former Suns assistant for five seasons (2008-2013), Kokoskov also coached the Slovenian national team to a Eurobasket championship last summer. One of the stars of that squad was 6’8″ white Magic man Luka Doncic. He’s been mock-drafted as high as three, but might the Suns select him No. 1 if they get him (intriguing option)?

Kokoskov’s own son is named Luka.

This is a great move by the Suns.

4. Luck Be A Lady

This is Maria Konnikova. Last year the writer for The New Yorker decided to learn to play poker as a stunt to write a book. Then Konnikova, who has a PhD in psychology, got very good.

In January, she took down a 240-player field to win $86,400 at an event. Since then, she’s won $57,000 at another event. The book is on hold for awhile.

We covered the 2005 World Series of Poker, the Main Event, from first hand ’til last in 2005. This thought of trying exactly what Konnikova did crossed our minds. Then we lost $300 in our first hour and decided against it. Props to her.

5. It’s Been 11 Days And Donald Trump Has Still Not Uttered James Shaw’s Name

Good guy.

Without a gun.

Foils a white supremacist’s attempt to murder fellow minorities at a Waffle House.

Using an AR-15.

Donald Trump still has yet to mention the name of James Shaw.

But yesterday Ellen Degeneres welcomed Shaw to her program and then, as she is won’t to do, arranged a surprise by having Shaw meet his favorite pro athlete, Dwyane Wade.

It’s funny. Everything about Shaw makes him seem like a chill, stand-up dude. And the silence from the White House on his heroism is quite deafening.

Maybe this is something they can all discuss at the NRA national meeting this weekend in Dallas, where guns will NOT be allowed inside the auditorium. Hmm.

Music 101

Deadbeat Club

The B-52’s are everything we love about music: fun, shameless, harmonious and utterly original. Were they futuristic or decidedly retro? Who was the lead singer, actually (turns out all but one of them were). And then, in 1989, a decade after they made their first big splash, when you would’ve assumed they were way past their prime, the (other) Athens foursome put out their most commercially successful and, not coincidentally, radio-friendly album (Cosmic Thing). This was like the fifth single off it, and yet it’s just such a perfect southern slumber song. Love these guys.

Remote Patrol

Eastern Conference Doubleheader

Cavs at Raptors

6 p.m. ESPN

Sixers at Celtics

8:30 p.m. TNT

How did Adam Silver get sideways on the NBA playoff schedule? Two Eastern Time Zone games on the same night? There are going to be homes all over North America tuning in to see LeBron at halftime, earliest, thinking WTF? Don’t say we didn’t warn you, Susie B.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Ove Time!

In Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semis between the Capitals and Penguins, Alex Ovechkin scores the game-winner with 1:07 left in Pittsburgh. Caps win 4-3 and take a 2-1 series lead.


This is the 10th time the Caps have been involved in the Stanley Cup playoffs in the Ovechkin era, and he is undoubtedly, at worst, the second-best player of his era, but they still have yet to advance to a Stanley Cup final. The Penguins have knocked them out three times, including the last two. They are Ove due to at least sniff the Cup.

2. Doctor My Lies*

*The judges hope you are a Jackson Browne fan….

Forget for a moment that Donald Trump’s personal physician, Harold Bornstein, looks as if he’s been dipping into his own stash with profligate abandon….

February 1, 2017: In an interview with The New York Times, Bornstein offers that he had prescribed his patient Donald Trump hair growth medicine for years (apparently doctor-patient privilege isn’t as vital to Bernstein as attorney-client privilege is to Michael Cohen).

February 3, 2017: According to Bornstein, Trump thugs raid his office and seize all medical records relating to Trump and even confiscate a framed photo of the two men. “I couldn’t believe anybody was making a big deal out of a drug to grow his hair,” Bornstein told NBC. “It certainly was not a breach of medical trust to tell somebody they take Propecia to grow their hair.”

May 1, 2018: Bornstein shares all of this information in an interview with NBC News. Then he confesses to CNN that the superlative results of a physical exam he gave Trump in December of 2015 that features inimitable Trumpian bombast (“If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency“) was dictated by his patient. “He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter,” Bornstein told CNN on Tuesday. “I just made it up as I went along.”

Trump, who turns 72 in June, is the oldest person ever elected president. In his defense, his stamina and energy has never been an issue while he has been in office. Still, it’s just another example, if true, of Trump demanding you compromise your professionalism or value in service to him, to loyalty, while understanding how quickly he will cut you off if your fealty and subservience is not utterly complete and unequivocal at all times.

Also, given what started this kerfuffle (the Propecia revelation), just how vain Trump is.

3. KKK: Kanye & Kim Kardashian

Oh, how beautiful was this. Here’s one of the world’s most famous celebrities talking out the side of his arse (“When you hear about slavery for 400 years….for 400 years? That sound like a choice“) and then as he’s leaving, Kanye West is confronted by a TMZ underling who basically lets him have it, verbally, between the eyes. YOU HAVE TO WATCH.

Don’t we all wish we could get a minute to rant at our favorite artists for betraying their values? “Bruce, I love you, man, but what’s with all the synthesizers on ‘Dancing In The Dark?'”… Or, “Bono, for the love of God, put DOWN the megaphone!”

4. Knocking On Heaven’s Door*

*The judges will also accept “Death Wish”

This is David Goodall. He’s an Australian botanist, based in Perth, and on April 4 he celebrated his 104th birthday (why are all the cool scientists named Goodall, by the way?). When he blew out the candles of his birthday cake, his wish was to die. He’s had enough. It’s time to go home. If you have older friends or relatives, you know that they usually like to depart from any gathering early. Well, David’s just taking that idea up a notch.

He’s flying to Switzerland, where euthanasia is not expressly forbidden, and he plans to leave this existence next Thursday, May 10th. He has no weekend plans, apparently. We salute you, David. You’ve had enough of this party and you just want to go home. Understood.

5. Mike Drop

Yesterday Mike Francesa’s Jay Leno turn came to fruition as he returned to broadcasting on WFAN after about a year of “retirement.” Francesa smoked the peace pipe with the three aging millennials he replaced (Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray, Bart Scott, whom you can refer to as CMB but they’re not going to  last long enough at WFAN or anywhere else where you’ll be needing to commit this acronym to memory), and then moved on to talking about the Yankees-Astros (and apps, and not fried zucchini) in his newly streamlined 1-3 p.m. slot.


None of the three people he replaced had the audacity to call him out for going Leno on their Conan. And that’s why, unlike Francesa (or Howard Stern), they’ll never find a loyal or yuuuuuge audience.

Reserves

There May Be Hope For The NBA Yet (But We Doubt It)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxOy67Le1yw

They called a lane violation on LeBron James last night. Finally. Yes, it matters. Below, Dan Dakich will tell you why….

Music 101

Le Freak

But what if we don’t want to freak out? The New York City-based band Chic didn’t give a damn. This 1978 tune went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, R&B and disco charts. Someone is doing a line while they listen to this song somewhere right now.

Remote Patrol

Champions League

Liverpool at Roma

2:30 p.m. FS1

After yesterday afternoon’s second-leg semi-final thriller from Madrid, this one has a lot to live up to. The fun part here is Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah was just named Footballer of the Year and now he’s returning to the venue where he played as a member of Roma before moving over to Liverpool last summer. Liverpool won the first leg 5-2, which means that Roma must win by 3 goals (and keep Liverpool to 0 or 1 goal) in order to advance.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | Leave a comment

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

Starting Five

1. Summer Of 49 (Questions)

Last night The Not-Failing New York Times published a list of approximately four dozen questions that special prosecutor Robert Mueller wants to ask the president. Those questions, which Mueller had sent to Trump’s lawyers weeks if not months earlier, were most likely leaked to The Times by one of Trump’s former lawyers who begged off the case or…by that new lawyer who last week was added to the case. An old friend of Donald’s by the name of Rudy Giuliani.

The questions can be broken into four categories (Flynn, Sessions, Comey, Russia), though sadly not concerns, “Hey, what was going on with the back of your scalp when you boarded Air Force One on that particularly windy afternoon this past winter?”


Four people have already pleaded guilty just to LYING to the special prosecutor in regards to this particular investigation. Which makes us wonder if there will be a FIFTH and makes us think that after all of Mueller’s questions, if Donald Trump will have just one: “Am I allowed to pardon myself?”

(No, Donald).

2. Netanyahu Serious?

Last night in Israel, the nation’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, went on national TV and showed off his CD collection. Sadly, most of them were burner mixes and an inordinately high number of those had tracks from Dashboard Confessional and Bjork. What can we say?

Apparently, most of the “Iran Lied” facts date back to 2009, which is why last night the White House released a statement that read “Iran HAS a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program” and then hours later corrected the tense on that provocative statement to “Iran HAD  a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program.”


The White House cited a “clerical error.” Makes you wonder whether the entire Iraq War (or both of them) started because some White House flunkie typed a “q” when he meant to type an “n.”

Also, we cannot wait for the White House to announce that the above, too, is a “clerical error.” It was full disclosure from Donald about his presidential campaign and should read, “I ran, lied.”

3. “O Romeo, Romeo!”

Romeo and the cap-you-let him wear

Yesterday thousands of people arrived at a high school gym in New Albany, Indiana, to hear a 6’5″ shooting guard by the name of Romeo Langford announce wherefore art thou he was matriculating this summer. Jim Gray was not spotted.

Tell us that isn’t one of his teammates, please.

Langford, who wisely choose Indiana or else good luck getting out of that gym alive, is considered a Top 5 prospect and the nation’s top shooting guard. He was named Indiana’s Mr. Basketball after averaging 35 points per game this season. His chaplain compared him to “Abe Lincoln,” which let’s face it, is better than being compared to Damon Bailey.

Look, we DID find Jim Gray…

4. Where In The World: Door To Hell

This is the Darvaza Gas Crater in Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert, known by locals as “the door to hell.” It’s approximately 60 meters by 20 meters and if you happen to kick your soccer ball into it, well, it’s gone.

So what’s the story here? It was a natural gas field that collapsed into an underground and geologists set it on fire in order to stop the spread of methane gas. It has been burning continuously since 1971. From here on out, we may just refer to the New York Knicks as the Darvaza Gas Crater.

5. 196.1 Vs. 2,066

Some day in the not-too-distant future, perhaps even later this year, a publicly traded company will be the first to be valued at (pinkie to side of mouth) “one TRILLION dollars!”

Now who will that be? Odds are that it’ll be either Apple, whose current value is $838 billion, or Amazon, which is currently valued at $758 billion. So how will we know? Unless one of these companies does a stock split in the next year—Amazon could but we doubt it will—look for the moment when Apple’s stock price, currently, $166, hits $196.10. As for Amazon, currently at $1,566, look for when its stock price hits $2,066.

The race is on. Momentum says Amazon, but Apple has been confounding doubters for years now. We’re going with the Jobs creator.

Music 101

I Think We’re Alone Now

An easy recipe for pop song success: pore over Billboard chart lists that are two decades old and re-record a classic. Tommy James and the Shondells were victimized this way twice in the Eighties, first by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (“Crimson and Clover”) and then in 1987 by Tiffany, the Madonna of the malls. James and the Shondells wrote this song and took it to No. 4 in 1967; twenty years later Tiffany took it to No. 1. Both versions are fantastic.

If you wanna feel old, imagine someone re-recording Fastball’s “The Way” right now. Same time gap.

Remote Patrol

The Cowboys

8 p.m. Sundance

John Wayne in one of his elder statesmen cowboy roles and a band of barely adolescent lads lead a cattle drive. Bruce Dern plays the bad hombre. Solid, from 1972.