by John Walters

An Entirely Happy 69th birthday to the one and only David Letterman…

Starting Five

“If you like pina coladas/And getting caught in the rain/If you’re not into yoga/And you have half a brain…”

1. Chuck Roast

“A review of last night’s episode of Better Call Saul as soon as I shovel Fran’s driveway in Cedar Crest…as soon as I’m finished filming my Ruppert Holmes documentary (“Isn’t he British?”)….as soon as I watch ‘Diagnosis: Murder’ between 10:18 a.m. and 10:35 a.m.”….as soon as I hijack an ice cream truck on a two-lane highway to Socorro….”

What a great penultimate episode of the season, and as Sepinwall notes, both Jimmy and Mike head down the Walter White Trail of Unintended Dire Consequences. Mike’s hijacking of Hector Salamanca’s “ice cream truck” gets a Good Samaritan killed, while Jimmy’s valiant (but illegal) method of getting Mesa Verde back as Kim’s client (everyone knows it’s 1261 Rosella Drive) may have resulted in Chuck’s death or at least his slipping into a coma. One more week remains….

2. Round and Round

Richards breaks the tape….

We’ll have more in Newsweek later today, but on Saturday at the Armory at a 168th Street in upper Manhattan (i.e., Harlem), world records were set in the indoor marathon. Malcolm Richards of San Francisco ran the 211 laps of the 200-meter track in 2:21, while Allie Kieffer set a new women’s mark in 2:44. They both also broke unofficial world records for overcoming tedium.

3. The Other Curry

The 6’2″ Curry has had a breakout month….

The Sacramento Kings, a team based in northern California (unless they’ve moved Sacramento) defeated the Phoenix Suns last night, 105-101. The Kings leading scorer in the game with 20 points was Seth Curry, who just happens to be the younger brother of the world’s best basketball player (come at me, Susie B.!).

The younger Curry, after not having a single 20-point game this season (if not ever in his career), has scored 20 or more points four times in the past fortnight. What up with that?

4.  Leicester Atop The Table

Believe it or not, this is the top scorer on the EPL’s top team

Arguably the year’s most amazing sports story is taking place across the pond: Leicester City is atop the English Premier League. The Foxes have lost just three of 33 matches (21-9-3) and have a seven-point lead over Tottenham Hotspur with five games remaining (three points for a win, 1 for a draw). Jamie Vardy, above, is second in the EPL with 21 goals but what is more impressive is that Leicester City has put together five consecutive clean sheets (shutouts).

The club, which has been around since 1884, has NEVER finished atop England’s top league. There are no playoffs in EPL, so it’s just a matter of holding off Tottenham. Tickets for Leicester’s final home game, May 7 versus Everton, are being sold on the secondary market for $21,300 per pair. See, everyone loses interest when there’s no playoff.

5. Watts Up!

If there is a magazine cover-to-film ratio meter, Naomi must have the highest score out there….

If you have travelled lately or just passed a magazine rack, this magazine cover featuring Aussie actress Naomi Watts may have caught your eye (not that it did mine….). Watts, 47, has a prolific IMDB page since co-starring in Mulholland Drive in 2001, but she may be even more prolific as a magazine cover girl. I counted no fewer than 70 magazine covers she’s graced in the past decade or so. She’s like the Michael Jordan of fashion/women’s magazines.

(This is easily my newsiest item of the week)

Kobe Watch

My bad yesterday: Last night was Bryant’s penultimate game, in Oklahoma City. Mamba scored 13 points. Career average is now 24.9687 points per game. Of course, if you only use three digits, that still rounds up to 25.0, as the good folks at Basketball-Reference.com reminded me yesterday.

Music 101

Brass In Pocket

The ’80s first female rock star? Chrissie Hynde, Ohio-born lead singer of the English band The Pretenders. She was as cool as Deborah Harry, and could play the guitar as well. This, the band’s breakout hit, reached No. 13 on the Billboard charts. She was already 28 when this tune hit.

Meanwhile, Scarlett Johansson did a pretty fair job covering this song at a karaoke bar in Tokyo a couple of decades later.

Remote Patrol

Champions League: Paris St. Germain at Manchester City

2:30 p.m. FS 1

Fear the Zlatan (Ibrahimovic), Man City fans….

The English side will be without their top scorer, Vincent Kompany, a Belgian player whom autocorrect loathes. These two drew, 2-2, in the first leg of their quarterfinal match in Paris.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 42nd to everyone’s favorite Cylon, Tricia Helfer (yet another Canadian)

Starting Five

Billy Payne: Adding insult to infamy

Spieth Easy

Beware the Quadruple Bogeyman

Willet Happen? Yes, et Will

Jordan Spieth shot a fourth straight birdie on the 9th hole yesterday, making the turn at seven-under-par for the Masters and leading Clay Travis to tweet, “It’s over. Our Spieth +850 futures ticket is cashing. Go buy $20 pants, tshirts and visors at OutkicktheCoverage.com.”

And at that moment, I completely started rooting for fate and the field to take over. And they did. Spieth took a seven at Amen Corner (anagram: Mean Corner), hitting two into the drink, and Englishman Danny “I am Reek” Willett burst through the door.

The ’86 Masters featured Jack Nicklaus’ glorious run for his final green jacket.

The ’96 Masters featured Greg Norman’s momentous collapse.

And now the ’16 Masters has another memorable meltdown, Spieth’s. And then he had to place the green jacket on WIllett, not once but twice.

2. Spirit of ’72

Oh yeah, and the Spurs will not become the first NBA team to finish a season 41-0 at home. See ya in the Western Conference finals, gang.

Give the Golden State Warriors this: They earned it. With the tank half-filled at best, the Dubs won back-to-back games this weekend in Memphis and San Antonio. The 100-99 win versus the Grizz was their first one-point game of the season, and they had to outscore Memphis 8-2 in the final 2:24 to secure it.

Last night’s 92-86 win at San Antonio—it was over when Stephen Curry hit that one-handed desperation bank shot from 18 feet—was their first victory in that city since 1997, a span of 33 losses: “Nobody but NOBODY beats the Golden State Warriors 34 times in a row,” coach Steve Kerr joked.

Curry scored 37 last night, and that was minus the 60-foot shot he sank at the end of the third quarter that looked as if it came before the buzzer (the refs said no and I never saw a replay on NBA TV).

So now they’re 72-9. They’ve tied the ’96 Bulls with one game to play, and they’ve got two nights off before hosting Memphis. That one will be off the hook (and to think GSW lost at the Lakers earlier this season, the league’s second-worst team, a defeat that might have cost them the record).

3. Will….and Grace

Smith was a key part of the Saints’ only Super Bowl champion team, and an Ohio State national championship team. He also made one Pro Bowl.

Former Ohio State Buckeye and New Orleans Saint defensive end Will Smith was shot and killed after a rear-end collision in the city’s Garden District late Saturday night. Smith, 34, leaves a wife and three children. The man who allegedly shot him, Cardell Hayes, 30, is a former four-star lineman who at 6’5″ and about three bills is actually larger than Smith (cue the 10,000-word Gary Smith think piece about where lives go wrong and right and how they intersect).

People will talk about gun violence and to a degree, they are correct. Gun advocates will admonish me for saying that, disingenuously acting as if I or anyone else saying so believe guns are the entirety of the problem, which we all know that they are not (but they’ll say that to show us how misguided we are, because they don’t want to even give one inch on this debate; Guys: No one is saying that).

Hayes

People will also talk about the lack of respect for life, and again, to a degree they are correct. But it’s much, much simpler than that. Saints quarterback Drew Brees spoke to Peter King of SI/MMQB last night, and he nailed it: “The way human beings treat other human beings…”

In the end, it’s about decency toward your fellow man. I was on an NJ Transit train when I heard about Smith’s murder. In the seat behind me, someone was carrying on a loud cellphone conversation about absolutely nothing. Two rows over, young adults were talking entirely too loud and sprinkling their conversation with F-bombs and worse. Not enough people remember that they are small parts of a larger community as opposed to a universe unto itself. Not enough people just try to treat others, especially strangers, with a modicum of respect, the same respect that they demand that they be afforded (Find me someone talking about how they don’t get no respect and I’ll show you someone who probably respects nothing but themselves).

This photo of Smith (far right) with a former NOPD officer (far left) was taken an hour before his death.

Hayes, driving an orange Hummer (straight from the Better Call Saul prop dept?), rear-ended Smith, driving a Mercedes. Two large men disembarked from their vehicles late on a Saturday night. Alcohol was likely involved. Chances are nobody went Ned Flanders on the other. And now one man is dead, one family is destroyed, and another man will spend the rest of his life in jail. Really, was all of that worth being THE MAN?

4. What’s HIS Story?

Trot, trot, trot….

Meet Trevor Story of the Colorado Rockies. The rookie shortstop blasted seven home runs in his first six Major League Baseball games, a feat that has never before been done (he’s on pace for like a 190-home run season, which should break McGwire’s Maris’s record).

Story’s first two MLB homers came off former Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke. Four of Story’s home runs measured 425 feet or beyond, so yeah, Troy Tulowitzki, they don’t miss you in the Mile High City. Story, 23, is from Irving, Texas, and he was also the Irving H.S. quarterback. That’s about all we know at the moment, outside the fact that he is now practiced in the home run trot.

5. SpaceX Sticks The Landing

Maybe because they did it late Friday afternoon, it didn’t receive the attention that it deserved. At 4:36 p.m. or so, Elon Musk’s company launched a rocket from Cape Canaveral, then stuck the landing on the rocket part of it on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, which puts anything Nadia Comaneci or Olga Korbut ever did to shame. Slow clap for Mr. Musk, who the week before unveiled the relatively affordable Tesla Model 3. He’s our latest Steve Jobs, if you are not paying attention.

Seriously: Watch that video! No special effects. That happened, and not in a Star Wars flick. Astounding.

Kobe Watch

The Mamba went for 35 points in his penultimate game (a doff of the cap to you, sir). You can do the maths for the career average yourself:

33,570 points

1344 games

average: 24.977 points per game

So how come Basketball-Reference.com correctly lists the first two numbers, but under career scoring average lists it as 25.00?

Kobe is also shooting .354 from the field, which is not only the worst FG percentage in the NBA this season, but would be the worst, as far as we know, in more than 55 years.

Music 101

Do Ya (The Move song)

The British 70’s supergroup ELO is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is more of a discredit to the latter’s integrity than to the former’s artistry. This 1976 song, though, definitely belongs in the TURN IT UP! Hall of Fame. The tune was originally written by ELO frontman Jeff Lynne for his previous band, The Move, five years earlier. Then soft-rocker Todd Rundgren abducted it and fans thought it was a Todd Rundgren tune. So ELO re-recorded this version, adding face-melting power chords, so that no one would be misled. It only reached No. 93 on the Billboard charts, but I promise you, FM deejays at the time loved this song, and with good reason.

Remote Patrol

Jackie Robinson

9 p.m. PBS

Robinson died in 1972 at the too young age of 53.

The two-part Ken Burns series on No. 42, the man who broke baseball’s color barrier, begins tonight. Robinson made his MLB debut on April 15, 1947. Not that it matters that much, but Robinson batted .311 in his 10 MLB seasons and twice led the NL in stolen bases  (and once in batting average, with a .342).

by John Walters

A Medium Happy birthday to Taylor Kitsch/Tim Riggins, who is now old enough to run for president (Except he’s Canadian() (Like that matters any more)

Starting Five

Els carded a 9 on the first hole of the Masters

LO-Els*

*The judges will also accept ‘Putt-putt-putt-putt-putt-putt-Golf’

Quintuple bogey?!? On the very first hole of the Masters? Ernie Els, who has twice finished as a runner-up at Augusta, reached the green on the par-four hole in three shots. His try for par was just 2 feet short…then he putted six more times. Never seen anything like that in a round I was not involved in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwCuL1xbxIU

Els was two under the rest of the round to finish 8 over par.

Thank you, Ernie, for making golf more accessible to millions of us.

2. Summitt’s Nadir

How much trouble are you in? No, wider.

Welcome to the “Hate To Say I Told You So” portion of today’s program. Doesn’t matter if you’re Tyler Summitt or Luke Russert or even Mike Golic, Jr., when you are given a job that is way above your station, in terms of experience, the rest of us roll our eyes (okay, I roll my eyes) because there are dozens if not hundreds of people out there who have worked far longer, and are most likely far better, than you are. And you just don’t appreciate what you have. You can’t.

So Summitt, who is married, resigns from Louisiana Tech, from a head coaching job he got at age 24, for apparently having an improper relationship with one of his own players. Okay, yes, I went down the roster of La. Tech players last night to see who I thought it might be. So sue me.

Anyway, a reminder that Kim Mulkey played at Louisiana Tech, won a title there as a player, and then was an assistant there under Leon Barmore for 15 years. Then La. Tech gives her the head coaching job when Barmore retires, but only a four-year contract, because a five-year deal would give her 20 years on the job and automatically get her a tate pension. And they wanted to make her prove herself before they gave her that. So Mulkey told them to stuff it, went to Baylor, and won two national championships instead. And La. Tech hired Tyler Summitt…

Finally, you just know that everyone held this news until after Tuesday night’s natty game….

3. Surrender, Cobra

Here’s the real story on why/how Indonesian pop singer Irma Bule was bitten onstage by a king cobra Sunday night and died. Bottom line: snake dancers are paid more.

Alice Cooper knew enough to perform with non-venomous vipers

4. Will the Padres Score?

Yangervis Solarte has San Diego’s only extra-base hit, a double, thus far on the season. He’s batting .200

San Diego plays at Colorado this afternoon (4:30 p.m.), which is known as a hitter-friendly ballpark, which is good. Because in three games with the Los Angeles Dodgers at Petco Park earlier this week, the friars failed to plate a run. They’re 0-3 with a minus-25 run differential thus far.

As team announcer Dick Enberg would say, “Oh my.”

Granted, the Dodgers have a few pitchers who can throw…

5. Where In The World?

Hint: Some call this the prettiest restaurant in the world

Yesterday: Perth, Australia

Reserves

If you were still awake at the conclusion of last night’s Spurs-Warriors contest, you were treated to this. Also, kudos to Shaq for bringing the energy to a set where Derek Fisher and Brent Barry were wooden (and both declined to ride the bull).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpN-JKKHa7w

Also…I laughed. Kudos to Bomani for being THAT bold on his (I believe) debut on “Mike & Mike.” Probably ruffled Norby’s feathers some. Be careful, Bo. Remember a dude named Bill Simmons?

Music 101

Tomorrow

Is Silverchair the greatest Australian grunge band (they sound exactly like Alice In Chains), or are they just a one-hit wonder that leaves us wondering why they never capitalized on this early Nineties hit? Or both?

At the time this song was recorded, in 1994, the band members were all 15 years and in high school. The following year they opened for Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ramones. So they probably got more chicks in high school than we did.

Remote Patrol

Warriors at Spurs

Sunday 

7 p.m. NBA TV

Let’s assume Golden State wins tomorrow night in Memphis. Then they’ll be 71-9 heading into this game at AT&T Center, while the Spurs will be 39-0 at home. No matter who wins, one team keeps its hopes alive for an historic streak. Golden State would need to beat Memphis at home after two full days off, on Wednesday. San Antonio would need to beat OKC at home on Tuesday.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 52nd to Russell Crowe, who will be hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend.

Starting Five

DeChambeau is in select company with Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson,  Tiger Woods and Ryan Moore

Do You Know/Bryson DeChambeau?

The Masters just teed off and I’m rooting for this guy (above). He’s a physics major from SMU who won both the NCAA title and the U.S. Amateur last year. DeChambeau is considered a “mad scientist” of the game, soaking his golf balls in Epsom salts, using irons that are all the same lengths, 37 1/2 inches (the last Masters golfer to do this was Bobby Jones, who only co-founded the event).

DeChambeau, 22, discovered a book written by a Seattle-based aeronautical engineer called “The Golf Machine” that has some unorthodox, but highly logical, ergonomic ideas about swing and so forth. He has memorized excerpts of the book the way a zealot would verses of the Bible. Interesting cat, making his debut at Augusta.

2. “Cano, It’s Me…

When a future Hall of Famer voluntarily leaves the Yankees…

…I’ve thought about us for a long, long time”

Still blaming Jay Z for persuading one of the greatest Dominican ballplayers to leave the city that may have the most Dominicans outside the DR. Anyway, Robinson Cano clouted (blasted?) two two-run home runs yesterday, giving him four HRs in this nascent season. He’s batting .308 with 7 RBI after three games.

Castro is convertible from a Cub to a Yankee….

Meanwhile, the Yankees may have finally found a replacement for Cano: “All-” Starlin Castro had four hits in last night’s 16-run barrage for the Bombers. Castro is batting .625 with 7 RBI after two games.

3. Was This About the ‘Crying Jordan’ Meme?

Props to the students at Jagannah University for not backing down

In Bangladesh, the term “hacking” when used in the same sentence as “blogger” has nothing to do with binary code. Students at Jagannah University are protesting today after one of their own, Nazimuddin Samad, was hacked to death with machetes after blogging about reality. Samad wrote on a Facebook post, “Evolution is a scientific truth. Religion and race are invention of the savage and uncivil people.”

Well, duh.

I’ve said this before: My least favorite Muslims are delusional Muslims holding machetes.

Kudos to the students in Bangladesh. They’re not whining about “not feeling safe.”

4. Merle Haggard 

Adding Haggard to the All-Aptly Named Team

A couple of things about country legend Merle Haggard, who passed away yesterday on his birthday at age 79: He passed away inside his tour bus even though he was on his property (street cred) in Bakersfield, California; his manager of 54 years, Fuzzy Owen (of course), was with him; he’d predicted a few days earlier that he would die on his birthday; he served a stint in San Quentin; and he also recorded 38 songs that went to No. 1 on the country music charts between 1966 and 1987.

Song you may know best: “Okie from Muskogee” or “Today, I Started Loving You Again.”

Note: Haggard was not married to Susan in Eight Is Enough. That was Merle the Pearl. Another Californian named Merle, just not Haggard.

5. Where In The World?

Hint: one of the harder cities on the planet to get to….

Yesterday: Milan Cathedral

Kobe Watch

Mamba scored 17 points last night, giving him 33,521 in 1,342 games. That gives him an average of 24.978 points per game in his career. Four games remaining. He needs to score 129 points, or average 32 points per game in his final four to reach 25.00 ppg. Don’t see it happening. Meanwhile, Basketball-Reference.com has those totals on its site (33,521 and 1,342) but still has him at 25.0 ppg. Oversight or propaganda?

Music 101

Wild Safari

This infectious tune closed the latest episode of Vinyl, in which former Yale Whiffenpoof Clark, the dorky white guy who to this point has seemed like a young tool headed nowhere, gets invited to a party/social club in Harlem or the Bronx and discovers the Latin beat. The band is Barabbas, a group from Spain that actually released this song in 1971. So if, like me, you’d never heard of it, then you’ve been living in Clarksville, too (you can take the last train there).

p.s. Did Steve Winwood later pilfer this opening percussion beat for “Higher Love?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWE1M1uqw8A&nohtml5=False

Remote Patrol

Spurs at Warriors

10:30 p.m. TNT

kWh Leonard is the goods

There’s no more wiggle room for the Dubs, who have four games remaining and must win all four to finish 73-9. Will Pop rest his starters? Do you realize that technically San Antonio could still finish ahead of GSW for first place in the West, the prize of which is avoiding OKC in the second round?

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 69th to Cliff Claven (John Ratzenberger), the original “Well, actually” guy….

Starting Five

Geno, badly in need of a tie loan from Jim Nantz, congratulates Stewie as she exits the most successful career in women’s hoops history

1. “Veni, Vidi, Geno”

11 national championships (in 11 national championship games)

Six perfect seasons (the entirety of D-I men’s hoops has had seven)

A fourth consecutive national title—never been done in men’s or women’s hoops

A 75th straight win, for a program that already has a 90- and a 70-game win streak in its past.

Geno Auriemma: Your 2016 Sports Illustrated “Sportsperson of the Year” (or else they’re all dopes).

2. Better Call Paul

After all the heat and blather of the debates and town halls, the idea of Ryan winning the GOP nomination would be hysterical. But it could happen.

Ted Cruz wins last night’s Wisconsin primary. Donald Trump could and probably will still enter the GOP convention in Cleveland with more delegates. John Kasich isn’t maleficent or insane but the Republicans don’t want him. Is there a chance that House Majority Leader Paul Ryan, who has partaken in absolutely zero of the past year’s debates, could win the GOP nomination? And how funny would that be!

Ryan, by the way, is a senator from where? Wisconsin!

3. On Deck: The People Vs. O.J. McDuffie

If Kardashian is disillusioned here, it’s probably good that he did not live long enough to see what happened with his daughters

Admit it: you heard there was going to be a mini-series about the O.J. Simpson trial on F/X, you saw the cast: John Travolta, Ross from “Friends,” Nathan Lane, Dr. Fleischmann from “Northern Exposure,” Theo from “Cosby,” and of course, Rod Tidwell from “Jerry Maguire,” and you thought, “Shark-Kato!”

Well, the The People Vs. O.J. Simpson concluded last night (I won’t give away the ending here) and it was fantastic. If you were of age at the time, you can appreciate how well they captured both the main characters of the trial but the prevailing national mood. I particularly loved Courtney Vance as Johnnie Cochrane and the dude who was a dead ringer for Christopher Darden. Come September, there will be Emmy awards handed out for this series and actors, and they will be well-deserved.

4. Dub Steps and Missteps

Is the dream still alive? The Golden State Warriors, who were 68-7 last Thursday, are now 69-9 after two home defeats in the past five days. Last night Minnesota, a team that entered Oracle Arena with a 25-52 record, took down the Dubs in OT. Golden State committed 24 turnovers and Stephen Curry was just 4 of 13 from beyond the arc.

This is why I hate all Nate Silver projections. I said in late January Golden State wouldn’t break the Bulls record. That takes a little courage. Changing your percentage predictions after each game, win or lose, is meaningless drivel (And you thought I’d put my high horse out to pasture).

Four games left, two each versus Memphis and San Antonio (home and away with each), and the Warriors must go 4-0. The pre-March Warriors could do it. I don’t know if the Dubs of the past two weeks could or if they should even try. They look spent.

Related: The Sixers won their 10th game, so they will not tie for worst record.

Also Related: The Timberwolves are going to be a very, very good team.

5. Where In The World?*

Hint: Not in Australia

*Because the judges are late for an appointment with the tax man

Music 101

Supernova

Considering that the fair Liz Phair is playing four blocks down the street from my abode three nights this week, and thinking back to Monday night, this song is a no-brainer (as opposed to, of course, a “brainer”). Phair, an Oberlin College grad, was the darling of MTV’s Alternative Nation/120 Minutes shows back in 1993 and ’94, then seemed to vanish as swiftly as she arrived. Back when “Modern Rock” was a thing, this tune hit No. 6 on that chart (and No. 78 on the Billboard pop chart) in 1994.

Remote Patrol