Starting Five

1. Homers

Eight NBA first-round openers, and eight home teams hold serve. Average margin of victory: 16.36 points. Only two games were decided by fewer than 10 points: Knicks 85, Celtics 78 and Denver 97, Golden State 95. The Warriors lost (insert adjective “rugged”) forward David Lee to a hip flexor for the remainder of the playoffs, which likely just became a briefer journey for them. Top scorer of the openers? Carmelo Anthony of the Knicks, with 36 points. Top performer– I mean, besides Kobe Bryant’s performance on Twitter? Paul George of the Indiana Pacers. The Half-Beatles (or should we go with “The Fab 24?”) had a triple-double in Indiana’s defeat of the terminally uninteresting Hawks with 23 points, 11 boards and 12 assists.

PG-23-11-12

2. Colorado Small “a” avalanche

The Rocky Mountain state suffers its deadliest avalanche in 51 years, as four snowboarders and one skier perish beneath a 200-yard wide sliding wall of snow near Loveland Pass (Elev: 11,990 feet). All five victims were males in their 30s and all were equipped with avalanche beacons. Ironically, they were participating in an event, organized by one of the victims, Joseph Timlin, to raise money for the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. A sixth member of their party, Jerome Boulay, was also buried but he survived. And will probably be speaking to Jon Krakauer at length before too long.

The aftermath

Worth noting: the avalanche, which traveled about 1,000 feet, did not occur on the face of a steep mountain as you might expect but rather a modest incline known as Sheep Creek…one victim was found 15 feet beneath the surface. Unrelated, but 17 skiers and snowboarders have died at Colorado ski resorts this season.

3. Boston Bombing Update: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is, according to multiple reports (but we now know how much that is worth), awake and answering questions posed to him by federal authorities at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. Tsarnaev, who apparently suffered a gunshot wound to the throat, cannot speak and is communicating through writing.

Also, it’s worth saying that this communicator is as guilty as anyone for succumbing to speculation on Twitter last week. Rushing to judgment and providing information on persons of interest may be two vastly different things, but in the world of social media I doubt any one of us wants to find themselves on the cover of the New York Post when we are innocent. So, an apology from me. Lesson learned. David Carr of The New York Times wrote a terrific essay on the media’s handling of the five days in Boston.

4. Boom! Goes The Dynamite… in North Dakota

These were anchor A.J. Clemente’s first moments on air. They may be his last. Dear NBC North Dakota: Call me.

5. “Broadway Joe…On Broadway!” That’s brilliant, Harry. For the second consecutive season on Mad Men, Roger Sterling hands Harry Crane a sizeable check in his office and Harry departs said office minus his gruntle. Interesting. Meanwhile, for those of you who are too young, Joey Heatherton was a fabulous babe who made the rounds on all the variety shows back when variety shows were a television staple (Laugh-In, The Smothers Brothers, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Carol Burnett, Flip Wilson, Sonny & Cher and Donny & Marie all had them).

Joey Heatherton and Perry Como. There’s a stocking stuffer joke here that we have too much class to make.

Reserves

Notre Dame nose tackle Louis Nix III, alias “Irish Chocolate”, alias “Chocolate Thunder”, earns an opportunity to take a shotgun snap from center in the Blue-Gold Game and takes advantage (proceed to the 5:00 mark here). Coach Brian Kelly had promised Nix he could do this if he earned good grades. Nix is listed at six-foot-three, 326 pounds on the roster but may be heavier. If you want to feel old, Nix was born about six years after William “The Refrigerator” Perry gained fame as a rotund defensive lineman who masqueraded as a fullback in goal-line situations.

Nix pulling a Peyton Manning before taking the snap.

For the Irish, by the way, the fun-loving and irreverent Nix, who will probably be a preseason first-team All-American on many lists, is the perfect antidote to the Manti Te’o melodrama.

It was 4/20 weekend, so perhaps this shot by @Earth_Pics of U.S. Army paratroopers landing in a marijuana field is appropriate.

Also on 4/20, a man who wore No. 42 and who died in Afghanistan was commemorated, as he is every April, via Pat’s Run in Tempe, Arizona. More than 28,000 runners, including SI’s Peter King, participated in the 9th annual staging of the 4.2-mile run that ends where Tillman first earned glory, inside Sun Devil Stadium.

The finish line is the 42-yard line. A bucket list event for runners… of all abilities.

One week after Adam Scott and Angel Cabrera went to a second playoff hole in Augusta, the European Tour does them seven holes better. At the Spanish Open in Valencia, Raphael Jacquelin of France and Maximilian Kieffer of Germany played the 18th hole nine more times before the Frenchman finally prevailed. The 81-hole event tied a record.

NBC’s Al Michaels is busted for DUI.
The final rolling of Toomer’s Corner, after Auburn’s spring game. Yes, a beloved college football tradition in the Loveliest Village on the Plain, but it is also the flora version of draping bacon over the back of a pig.

Alabama: Roll Tide. Auburn: Roll Toomer’s.

XXX

Starting Five

Oh, it’s happening alright. It began in Boston last night — the 238th anniversary of the night in this city when Paul Revere and William Dawes rode out of town to warn the colonists that the British were coming to Concord to seize the American arsenal (apparently, after I tweeted out this info last night, Ann Coulter retweeted it).  In 2013 Revere and Dawes have been replaced by Twitter, where information –some of it inaccurate, as we will see (and some of it disseminated by yours truly, but obviously involuntarily) — travels faster than the speed of television news. Here are some items.

Twitter’s founding father?

1. You have to deduce that last night’s events were incited by the 5 p.m. press conference in which law enforcement released video and still photos of the two unidentified suspects at large. Within hours the fugitives had ambushed and killed an MIT police officer (since identified by the Boston Globe as 26 year-old Sean Collier), robbed a convenience store and committed a car-jacking Some time shortly before midnight my friend Ken Fowler, a Notre Dame alum and a third-year law student at Duke, sent me a link to live coverage of the events unfolding in Watertown. At the time –and misinformation was flying as furiously as bullets — police units were reporting IED’s being tossed from the vehicle and “hand grenades.” It’s still too early to know precisely what happened, but this timeline from the New York Times is a trove of information.

2. What I got wrong (some of the information came first-hand from the Boston police scanner and eyewitnesses): The young man lying on his stomach, arms extended over his head and being held at gunpoint by police, was never a suspect. That video and photo ran on television and was all over Twitter… the missing Brown student, Sunil Tripathi and another young man, Mike Muguleta, were identified as the suspects. It turns out that they were not.

The savage brothers? Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The latter was killed in a police shootout last night.

3. CNN’s Anderson Cooper is obviously the news network’s leading on-air personality. On Wednesday afternoon Cooper was reporting from Boston, but by Thursday night Cooper had flown to West, Texas, to cover the deadly explosion from the fertilizer plant that claimed more lives. CNN should never have dispatched him there. The story was always in Boston as long as the suspects were on the loose. Guessing that Cooper is miffed about having missed the story of the year.

Two pics: On the left, you see Martin Richard and what appears to be the younger suspect. As well as the backpack.

4. According to CNN the younger suspect, still at large, is a graduate of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public high school in Cambridge, Mass. Notable alumni include Matt Damon, Patrick Ewing, Rumeal Robinson, two other pairs of brothers — Ben and Casey Affleck and Tom and Ray Magliozzi (the hosts of NPR’s “Car Talk”), poet E.E. Cummings, and former Baywatch actress Traci Bingham.

5. CNN’s Judy Woodruff is NOT happy with her camera crew for shooting footage of police units moving in Watertown. I’d hazard a guess that the TV news media is trying to cooperate with law enforcement in not giving away any tactical positions or movements, as the remaining known suspect is at large and may be watching TV.

Reserves

Here is a photo essay on the older brother, a Golden Gloves champion (CNN’s Don Lemon referred to him as a “Golden Globes boxing champion” but, hey, we’ve all made mistakes this week), from back when he was using his time more constructively.

I’ve not been watching non-stop, but has anyone seen John King on CNN since Wednesday afternoon’s fiasco?

Sea World (SEAS) has its IPO this morning. We hear that none of the marine mammal employees were offered shares in the company.

Half of the creatures in this picture are shareholders

Agree or disagree, but nobody makes a more cogent and hilarious argument than Jon Stewart (and his writing staff). He just destroys the senators who voted against background checks here.

A “Fly By Night” Outfit

The Canadian trio Rush (and others) were at long last inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night. The ceremony was held in Los Angeles. The pr0g-rockers were inducted by Dave Grohl, who is to R&R induction ceremonies what Teddy Atlas is to televised fights. The band finally took the stage at the Nokia Theater –to rousing applause — and played face-melting versions of Tom Sawyer and The Spirit of Radio.

“Begin the day with a friendly voice/A companion unobtrusive” The only known use of “unobtrusive” in rock annals.

$389 per share?!?! How do you like them AAPLs?

For what it’s worth: There are 30 companies that comprise the Dow Jones Index (DJI), all of them quite monolithic, huge American corporations (e.g., General Electric, Exxon). Apple, which is not in the Dow Jones Index, has more cash than any of them. The stock price of Apple has dipped more than $300 per share, more than 40%, since September. One metric –and not the only one– for measuring stocks’ values against one another is to compare their Price-to-Earnings (P/E) ratio, a unit that takes the value of the stock and divides it by the actual value of the company (more or less). In other words, how much more than the company’s actual worth investors are willing to pay for it.

iRate…at his company’s floundering leadership.

Apple (AAPL) is trading this morning at 8.8 times earnings. Its P/E is 8.8. Only two companies on the DJI are trading at a lower P/E than that: Chevron and JP Morgan. The 28 others are trading at a higher P/E, which translates to investors being more bullish about where those companies are heading. We may be looking back at this week, when AAPL fell below $400 per share, and wondering why anyone would not buy AAPL at this insane discount. Or we may be seeing a company in the early throes of its demise.

In news that seemed like forever ago, Tiger Woods’ former caddie, Steve Williams, believes that Woods should have been disqualified from The Masters. Williams, whose golf acumen is a little (a lot) better than mine, lays out the same argument that I did on Monday.

O Captain, My Captain!

Derek Jeter will be out until the All-Star break. As will A-Rod. Jeter and Mariano Rivera last shared a box score was April 30, 2012, in a 2-1 defeat of the Orioles in the Bronx. DJ went 1 for 4 and Mo got the save.

DJ will be MIA for awhile.

Starting Five

Early morning with the beef and spuds, so this will be quick…

1. “Doc is here? Doc is not here?”

CNN –and the Associated Press– (basically, everyone except NBC’s Pete Williams) went all vintage Johnny Carson asking whether or not Doc Severinsen was leading the band that night in their reportage of the arrest/non-arrest of a suspect in the Boston bombing case yesterday. No arrests as of this moment. No one in custody. (Also, check out the avatar of my man @bomani_jones on Twitter. Well done)

“Pete Williams is saying what?”

2. I tweeted out a chain of photos from Reddit yesterday that showed a few people standing near the finish line with black backpacks. Men whose actions might have seemed suspicious. A GIF of a man racing from the blast. According to Reddit, these men are not suspects and are in fact innocent. Make of it what you will. I’ll be over here reading The Ox-Bow Incident.

3. The U.S. Senate votes 54-46 against a bill that would have made it mandatory to have background checks for firearm purchases made at gun shows and over the internet. President Obama calls it “a shameful day for Washington.”

4. An explosion at a fertilizer plant in the town of West, Texas (not far from Waco) levels scores of homes within a five-block area and leaves at least 15 dead. Somehow Erin Brunette and Dr. Sanjay Gupta –both of whom must live in a hangar for a private jet — were on the scene within hours of the blast.

5. Thoughts and prayers to the Utah Jazz and their fans…

Starting Five

1. Boston

A few thoughts: No one has claimed responsibility, and whoever perpetrated this act (working solo or more than one person) was not a suicide bomber, i.e., he/she/they were not about dying for their cause…. hence the odds increase that whoever did this is acting more as a lone wolf… there were too many people taking too many photos and shooting too much video of the finish line area; the bomber is on someone’s camera… Did the bomber plant the bag there for maximum media affect? So that the crime would be televised?… My heart goes out to the three people who lost their lives –and their families– but also to the people who suffered life-altering injuries, particularly loss of limbs. People such as Jeff Bauman, 27, (below), who was there to watch his girlfriend run. Particularly cruel… Boston is a university-infested city, drawing students from all over the world. You will recall that the Virginia Tech gunman and the Denver theater gunman were disaffected college students at or near the time that they committed their mass murders. Is it anything? Maybe not. Is the FBI looking into it? No doubt.

Bauman would lose both of his lower legs to the blast.

The woman who appeared on both the covers of Tuesday’s New York Daily News and  New York Post  (I’ll leave it to you to speculate as to why) is Nicole Gross, a former swimmer at the University of Tennessee. Gross, 31, a personal trainer at the Charlotte Athletic Club, suffered a broken leg and ankle. Her sister, Erika Brannock, 29, had to have one leg amputated below the knee.  They were both there to watch their mother, Carol Downing, 57, who was running the marathon.

Gross (right) and her mom, Carol, before the race.

2. Au, Shucks

You know what is not worth its weight in gold? Gold! Earlier this week the most precious of all metals endured its worst two-day sell off in 30 years, plunging to a two-year low of $1,321 per ounce (which, according to this story, would make it cheaper than cocaine… which you cannot legally invest in). Anyway, the price of gold has already dipped 18% this year.

I have some bad news for you…

3. A few pearls of wisdom courtesy of a recent Rolling Stone interview with comic Louis CK. On putting in the years versus being an overnight success: “It’s understandable for people to want all their favorite things to happen, but the crazy thing is to think that they can avoid all of the hard things. To want everything that you ever dreamed of, to the exclusion of anything hard, that feels common to me now in a way that is hurting people. They’re ignoring how much good there is in being present for the hardest parts of your life…the worst thing happening to this generation is that they’re taking discomfort away from themselves.”

On our reaction to violence (and remember, this interview took place over a month ago): “What most people do with these events that happen, the violence in our country, is really disgusting, which is to pore over it. Everyone congratulates each other about how upset they are…every time there’s a tragedy in America, there’s all this gawky fascination and a lot of (***in’) exploitation. There’s a lot of (****in’ ) Nancy Grace…”

4. Just so everyone knows. This is Adam Scott, Masters champion, Aussie, and studly bachelor. And this is Adam Scott, actor (“Party Down”, “Parks & Rec”) who is not Aussie but who is kind of a leading man. Earlier this week the latter went on Conan to let everyone know he’d heard enough of the jokes. So, Are we having fun yet?

5. Final night of the NBA’s regular season. For 14 of the league’s 30 franchises, it’s “Win or Lose and Go Home.” What to watch for: Golden State’s Stephen Curry, who has buried 16 three-pointers in the past two games, needs just two more to break the NBA single-season record of 269 set by Ray Allen in 2006. The Warriors visit Portland, who have lost 12 straight contests by an average margin of 14.5 points per game. Ouch.

The East Bay’s most accurate shooter since Rick Barry

Reserves

A beaver is not a creature to be trifled with. A 60 year-old man in Belarus was killed last week when attempting to take a photograph with one and while this video is of a separate beaver attack, you can sort of get the picture why it’s best to avoid them.

We also recommend avoiding Biebers

Farewell to Pat Summerall, 82. Before he teamed up with John Madden to create arguably the best broadcast duo in NFL history, Summerall and Tom Brookshier created the NFL highlight show genre with “This Week in the NFL.” Here they are doing the open for Super Bowl XII, Dallas versus Denver, in New Orleans.

“Could I BEEE any less excited?” NBC is bringing Friends back for a full season. In 2014. I was wondering what had happened to Gunther.

Can I buy a vowel because O. My. God!

Remote Patrol

Utah Jazz vs. Memphis Grizzlies

Houston Rockets vs. Los Angeles Lakers

ESPN, 8 and 10:30 p.m.

If the Jazz win, then the Lakers must defeat Houston in order to make the playoffs. If the Jazz lose, the Lakers are not only in but could overtake the Rockets for the seventh spot in the Western Conference by defeating them. Either way, both sides draw either Oklahoma City or San Antonio, so good luck with that.

The Lakers opened the season 0-3 and it seems as if they’ve been chugging uphill to make the playoffs ever since. It all comes down to this evening, a home contest versus the playoff-bound Houston Rockets at Staples. If the Utah Jazz lose earlier in the night at Memphis, then the outcome here becomes irrelevant. If the Jazz win, though, L.A. must beat playoff-bound Houston in order to qualify.