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).