THE sports media have long been confounded by players whose batting averages with the bases loaded exceed their career averages. That this “phenomenon” stands to reason – all batters should hit for a higher average with the bases loaded because pitchers are forced to throw strikes and batters can be more selective – seems lost on the otherwise astute.
Thursday, Ch. 7’s Scott Clark, in a spring training chat with Robin Ventura, asked why it is that Ventura has hit .350 with 14 homers when batting with the bases full.
Ventura, bless his heart, replied, “Because the pitcher has nowhere to go.”
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THESE kinds of stories used to be significant because they were rare. A pee wee football coach from Hazlet, N.J. is on trial for felony assault, charged with breaking the nose of the father of a kid on the other team during a post-game argument. The greatest significance in these kinds of stories lies in the fact that they’ve become routine.
Lookalikes: Submitted by Post colleague Dave Blezow – U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White and Moe Howard.
Keith Sims, Jersey boy and an offensive lineman for years with the Dolphins and most recently the Skins, was cut last week. Sims, 34, is a most erudite and candid speaker of the game. If an NFL network doesn’t give him a call, it’ll be our loss.
The FCC has reported that the cost of cable TV subscriptions continues to escalate well beyond the rate of inflation. Last year’s cable rates rose 5.8 percent compared to the Consumer Price Index’s 3.7 percent.
Also from the FCC’s Dept. Of What Else Is New? came word that cable systems that compete in territories continue to provide the least expensive service.
Meanwhile, the FCC, under George W. Bush, says it will provide even less regulation of cable. How nice.
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VINCE McMahon’s apologists and network enablers rationalize him as a matter of taste. But he’s not; he’s a matter of conscience.
Ten years ago, Dr. George Zahorian, McMahon’s WWF physician in and out of the ring (Zahorian actually played a doctor in WWF angles), was sentenced to a federal penitentiary, convicted of illegally distributing drugs, including steroids, to many of the WWF’s stars, as well as to McMahon.
McMahon has repeatedly explained, to the satisfaction of ill-prepared TV interviewers, that he only did steroids when they were legal. But if he did them legally, why was the doctor who provided them sent to prison?
And if they were legal, why didn’t McMahon procure them from his local pharmacy in Connecticut, as opposed to having them shipped from Zahorian’s home in Pennsylvania?
Dr. Joel Hackett of Indianapolis, a far more recent regular on the WWF scene, two weeks ago was indicted on 48 criminal counts, including writing illegal prescriptions for controlled substances, fraud and deceit.
Hackett’s drug dispensing has been linked to the deaths of at least three pro wrestlers, including the WWF’s Brian Pillman, a former Cincinnati Bengal who in 1997 at age 34 was found dead.
It’s also worth noting, unless you’re a McMahon apologist, that while NBC was embracing McMahon as its partner in the XFL, McMahon was settling – to the tune of $18 million – a wrongful death suit filed by the widow of Owen Hart, who was killed in May of 1999 performing a stunt for McMahon during a WWF pay-per-view.
But dead wrestlers seem to dog McMahon, don’t they?
Vince McMahon, a matter of taste? Only for those without a conscience.
