STARTING FIVE
An Irish-Russian Wolfhound puppy. He may be dead by now.
1. Don’t Be a Gay Dog in Sochi This Month
In the span of 12 hours I watched Keith Olbermann’s terrific essay on the tragedy and travesty of officials in Sochi killing stray dogs (locals may want to make sure that Fyodo –get it?– is on a leash at all times) and saw a local ad for a rat exterminator.
Clearly, we humans do not prize all animal life the same (he said in between bites of his burger).
And I’m not sure why anyone is surprised by this. Did we go into this believing that Vladimir Putin and his government had a solid human rights record? So why would you think their pet rights stance would be any more progressive?
The world — i.e., sports columnists — will fret about this for a fortnight (“Harrumph harrumph harrumph”) and then they’ll tweet us about the inconvenience of transitioning from covering curling to a conference basketball tournament. I’ll be poised to salute the first sports writer who, instead of simply covering the macabre events in Sochi, rolls up his/her sleeves and does something to assist these canines.
2. Jackson Cager
Jackson leads the NBADL in scoring average with 30.2 ppg.
Nobody noticed, but former Baylor guard Pierre Jackson scored an NBA D-League record 58 points the other night for the Idaho Stampede in a victory versus the ironically named Texas Legends. Jackson, whose rights are owned by the New Orleans Pelicans, was 24 of 33 from the field, including seven of 13 from beyond the arc, in the 136-122 win. The old record, shared by two players, was 53 points.
Jackson’s outstanding scoring effort –he also had eight assists and six rebounds in 45 minutes –was his seventh 40-plus point game of the season. It’s just too bad that not a single team in the NBA needs a shooting guard.
3. “Wait!”
Suddenly, I have an urge to augment my stuffed animal collection.
Of course I’m going to drag out the title of my favorite White Lion song to announce the birth of white lion triplets in a Polish zoo. We can only hope that any of these that are male will someday grow up to have as fecund a mane as lead singer Mike Tramp.
Tramp was also born in Europe (Copenhagen), but not in a zoo. I think.
4. From North Pole to South Texas
Wright will leave home later this week in hopes of arriving on campus by the start of camp in August.
Lance Wright is not the first high school football player from Alaska to play major college football. Indeed, Mark Schlereth grew up in Anchorage and went on to win three Super Bowl rings after a career at Idaho. And Daryn Colledge grew up in North Pole, Alaska, which is close to Fairbanks, which is a few hundred miles north of Anchorage, and attended Boise State. He now plays for the Arizona Cardinals.
Wright, a wide receiver, is not the first Alaskan to play major college football. He’s just the first scholarship football (not basketball; save the Trajan Langdon/Carlos Boozer note, but please do write something else) player I know of who will travel beyond Idaho to play. Yesterday Wright, who is also from North Pole–just two degrees south of the Arctic Circle — accepted a scholarship to play at Rice in Houston. That’s about 4,250 miles from home, or about the same distance as traveling from New York City to Rome.
5. Taking a Bird Bath
Dick Costolo, meet your new spokesman.
If you own stock in Twitter (raises hand), you took a 20% beating in the stock price overnight after the company announced that, although it exceeded earnings estimates, its pace of growth has slowed. It went from $65.97 at the close to $50.61 at the open.
It’s a big deal because no single stock is as oft-discussed on CNBC –which, true, is not the ONLY business/finance channel, but then again ESPN is not the only sports channel, either– as Twitter.
My two cents: the site itself is naturally constructed to sell ads. It’s just a series of banners, one after the other. Place an ad in every 50 tweets or so. The site’s free –who’s going to walk away?
Meanwhile, look at the top 10 most popular follows on Twitter. With the exception of our president, every follow is someone or some entity that is HIGHLY popular with teens, who are only the most desirable demographic group for advertisers.
I’m still bullish. Bought 100 more shares this morning at $50 per.
Oh, and Twitter CEO Dick Costolo: How about an ad with Larry Bird and Chris Andersen?
Reserves
Really enjoying Letterman this week. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles playing in that very theater, Paul Shaffer and the band play Beatles tunes going into and coming out of every break. Also, last night Letterman’s guest was Matt Damon, who revealed that for “The Monuments Men”, director/star George Clooney places his dad in the film for the final shot and then, for the screening he did for his dad, added a black screen immediately after with the words, “In Memory of Nick Clooney.” That’s hilarious. Cold, but hilarious.
And here’s The Talented Mr. Ripley sharing another anecdote about Clooney’s even more recent prank.
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That all-female band from Russia whose name shan’t be mentioned here (Not Safe For Phyllis) played the Barclays Center in Brooklyn last night. I cannot name a single PR song, but judging from who their friends are –the other performers last night — getting jailed in Russia is a fantastic career move. Something to think about if you’re covering the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The Hall
Charter Inductees: Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner
1937: Tris Speaker, CF; Cy Young, P.
1938: Grover Cleveland Alexander, P; Eddie Collins, 2B
1939:Nap Lajoie, 2B; Joe Jackson, LF
1940: Billy Hamilton, OF; Cap Anson, 1B
1941: Wee Willie Keeler, RF; George Sisler, 1B
1942: Rogers Hornsby, 2B; Pie Traynor, 3B
1943: Mickey Cochrane, C; Frankie Frisch, 2B
1944: Ed Walsh, P; Old Hoss Radbourn, P
1945: Lou Gehrig, 1B; Kid Nichols, P
1946: Ed Delahanty, LF; Lefty O’Doul
1947: Pud Galvin, P; John McGraw, INF
1948: Carl Hubbell, P; Addie Joss, P
1949: Harry Heilman, OF/1B; Monte Ward, P/SS
1950: Cool Papa Bell, CF; Jimmie Foxx, 1B
1951: Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown, P; Josh Gibson, C
1952: Paul Waner, RF; Charlie Gehringer, 2B
1953: Mel Ott, RF; Hank Greenberg, 1B
1954:
Eddie Plank, P; 1901-1917, Philadelphia A’s
Plank, who was far more effective when actually throwing off the mound.
The deadball-era’s Greg Maddux, Plank stood five-foot-ten but compiled 326 career wins and eight 20-win seasons. “Gettysburg Eddie” also has the most career shutouts (66) of any southpaw in Major League history.
Dan Brouthers, 1B; 1879-1904, Ten teams, including the Brooklyn Grooms (!)
The six-foot-two slugger, huge for his era, retired after 19 seasons with the exact same batting average (.3421) as Babe Ruth, which is ninth-best all-time.
Remote Patrol
Sochi Olympics
NBC 8 p.m.
“I spot a poodle. How about you?”
So, yes, NBC’s Olympic coverage begins tonight, even though the Opening Ceremony does not air until tomorrow night. Events including figure skating, men’s slope style (we’ll miss you, Shaun), and canine biathlon. Something cool to get you through the dog days of February.
Love the blog! But as a born and raised Alaskan, just wanted to point out that the abbreviation for Alaska is “AK” (in the North Pole story). Alabamans might otherwise be scratching their heads right now!
Keep up the great work!
Still don’t own TWTR yet but do own AKAM, which almost had as good a day as TWTR had bad. Meanwhile, I also own PBR, seemingly the only oil stock one could actually LOSE money on the past 3 years.
Olympic spoiler alert – Jeremy Abbott empathizes with the Broncos.
Come on, come on, come on! Where’s today’s piece? I’m ready to do some Pontificating Of Olympian Proportions (er, AKA the POOP)!
Am I wrong in thinking that at least some confused Russians frown upon biathletes?