Starting Five
1. Ed T. Rush (the “T” stands for “Technical”) must go.
The Pac-12 Director of Officiating joked about giving referees $5,000 or a trip to Cancun if they gave Arizona coach Sean Miller a technical foul (which in fact they did, infamously) or “ran him” during the Pac-12 tourney in Las Vegas, according to this excellent piece of reporting by Jeff Goodman of CBSSports.com
This should be the lead story in sports this morning. Judges don’t joke, “Well, you LOOK guilty” and airline pilots don’t joke, “Hey, I think the right wing just fell off.” Likewise, referees don’t joke about being partial, and certainly directors of officiating do not.
Rush T’ing up Atlanta Hawk coach Richie Guerin back in 1970. I think Richie’s upset.
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott must fire Rush — immediately.
Background: Rush, a Philadelphia native, became an NBA official in 1966 at age 24. In the past 30 years an inordinately high number of refs have hailed from the Philadelphia area — three from Cardinal O’Hara High School alone — and some of them have been the league’s more notorious refs. Joey Crawford, who tried to bait Tim Duncan (that incorrigible delinquent) into a fight and Tim Donaghy are just two. Those two, like Rush, became NBA refs before their 32nd birthday. Highly unusual.
When, in 2007 I wrote a story marking the connection between Donaghy and the preponderance of Philly area refs, and noted that Rush was also from the City of Brotherly Love, Mark Cuban wrote me an email that read simply, “You are so close.” Last night Cuban, who was once fined $500,000 for saying that “Ed Rush is the most powerful man in the NBA”, reacted to Goodman’s piece by tweeting, “Not surprised. It will get worse.”
This should, and likely will be, a much bigger story by week’s end. Once more referees feel courageous enough to speak.
2. It was Tom Boswell who wrote, “Time begins on Opening Day.” It was Tom Bosley who said — as Mr. C. — , “Marion!” (“Are you getting frisky, Howard?”). Anyway, happy days are here again now that baseball has returned. Notes and trivia from Opening Day:
Chicago Cubs pitcher Jeff Samardzija became the first man we know of to start and win an Opening Day game (eight shutout innings and nine K’s versus the Pirates in Pittsburgh) who is also a former first-team All-American in college football. Worth noting that the Shark’s coming-out party as a college gridder also occurred in Pittsburgh, in the stadium right next door to PNC Park. Samardzija had three catches, one for a TD, in Notre Dame’s 42-21 pummeling of Pitt. Until that opener of his junior season Samardzija had been a forgotten man on the Irish bench…
Samardzija briefly held the school record for career receptions
With yesterday’s win, Shark is now 22-22 in the majors.
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim struck out 17 times and still won, 3-1, at Cincy. It’s the most strikeouts a winning team has had on Opening Day in the Live Ball era…Has anyone at Citi Field handed Mets rookie pitcher Scott Rice a copy of erstwhile Met pitcher R.A. Dickey’s memoir, “Wherever I Wind Up”? Rice, 31, spent 14 years in the minors and played for 18 different teams before finally making his Major League debut yesterday during the Met’s 11-2 (sports verb alert!) drubbing of the Padres. The (sports term alert!) southpaw threw a 1-2-3 inning, whiffing two… The Mets scored 11 runs but cleanup hitter Ike Davis went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts…Jose Iglesias of the Red Sox became the first player in 14 seasons to have three infield hits on Opening Day; I’m not amazed by Iglesias’ three hits, I’m amazed that someone actually would be able to access that stat… The Yankees used the Star Wars theme during pre-game player production. The film is 37 years old, or the mean age of the Yankees. Seriously: Mariano Rivera (43), Andy Pettitte (41), Derek Jeter and Ichiro Suzuki (39), Hiroki Kuroda (38), Alex Rodriguez (37), and Travis Hafner and Lyle Overbay (36). All Yankee games will air in past-their-primetime this season… On the other end of the scale, Bryce Harper became the youngest player in MLB history to bash two home runs on Opening Day. That was all the scoring Stephen Strasburg needed in the Nats’ 2-0 win… Clay Kershaw of the Dodgers became the first pitcher since Bob Lemon in 1953 to throw a shutout and hit a home run in the season opener (and Kershaw’s HR came in the 8th of a 0-0 game) while the Red Sox’ Jackie Bradley, Jr., (the Martin Short joke quota has already been surpassed) became the first player ever to record three walks and an RBI in his MLB debut.
That’s Jackie ROGERS, Jr., and he won’t be patrolling the Green Monster this season.
3. USC names Andy Enfield its new basketball coach, giving the Trojans an unbeatable one-two punch of coaches’ wives (Layla Kiffin and Amanda Enfield). Let’s note that Enfield was an NCAA-record 92.5% FT shooter at Johns Hopkins, but UCLA’s new coach, Steve Alford, was an 89.8% FT shooter, a two-time consensus All-American, an NCAA champion, AND he weathered a season of John Feinstein following the Hoosiers. To me, that’s more impressive.
Their first date ended at a Taco Bell. Now he’ll get to introduce her to Del Taco.
4. Over at The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart notes, with a certain degree of alarm, that Egyptian “television presenter” Bassem Yousef, whose show pokes fun at the president, has been arrested for insulting the president. Yousef’ specific crimes were making fun of President Mohammed Morsi’s funny hats and his mangling of the English language. As Stewart noted, referring to the years 2001-2009, “I made my living doing that for eight years.” Attempting to assuage Morsi’s fears that a comic’s quips could in any way destabilize his power, Stewart said, “Silencing a comedian doesn’t qualify you to be president of Egypt. Just…president of NBC.”
Watch the video, which meets the shows high standards for wit and insight. Even the title of the segment, “Viva Hate”, is a good pun on Morsi/Morrissey.
5. “Introducing a monocle…for dogs.” They’re right, this was an outstanding April Fool’s joke.
Reserves
UConn advances to the Final Four with a 30-point win versus Kentucky. The Huskies have won their four NCAA tourney games by an average of 37 points so, yeah, I think Geno has them focused after that Big East title game loss to Notre Dame. The Huskies advance to a record-sixth consecutive Final Four.
Trail Blazer rookie Damian Lillard returns to the state that was home to him during college (Weber? No, Utah) and buries three three-pointers to bring his season total to 169. That’s an NBA rookie record. Yes, he’s your Rookie of the Year.
Hong Kong International Airport has a movie theater. I’ve never understood why every major airport doesn’t have at least one movie screen. Sure, most travelers have tablets now, but wouldn’t you still pay to sit inside a theater to help kill a five-hour layover? “Now playing, a double feature: ‘Flight’ and ‘The Terminal’.” (by the way, Changi Airport in Singapore has a pool).
Remote Patrol
UEFA Champions League Quarterfinals
Bayern at Juventus
Paris Saint-Germain at Barcelona
Fox Soccer and FoxSportsNet 2:30 p.m.
Three of these legendary sides (Bayern, Juve and Barca) are former Champions League champions. Barcelona possesses the world’s best player (Lionel Messi) while Bayern has the sport’s best name: midfielder Bastian SCHWEINSTEIGER!”
I said, “The first round at Hofbrauhaus is on me!”
xxxx