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Golf Linkage....by Bob Sanders

 

One of the continuing delights of the computer is stumbling upon something from the nearly forgotten past, then pursuing that subject for an update.  Timely enough with the Masters golf tournament nearly upon us, my Googling was links-connected.

Pursuit began with curiosity about the Blue Hills Country Club whose Kansas City origins go back to 1912 and a location some 30 blocks south of where jazz greats developed their talents.  By the time my TV Guide employment got me transferred to the city in 1959, Blue Hills was deep into plans to build a new a very grand course.

I was introduced to the original layout as a guest of Bill Bates, then general manager of WDAF Radio & TV.  Two other members of the foursome were Jay Barrington, manager of WDAF Radio, and Bob Hanger, then co-owner of Jones & Hanger Advertising.

What Blue Hills left behind became one of those deals that young golfers today can't believe possible in a sport that has become very expensive.  In my case, there were a couple of standouts.  The Winnetka Club, designed by Chick Evans, cost $100 for a year's membership when I moved to the Chicago North Shore community in 1968.  Golf was unlimited and there were no greens fees if you lived within the city's limits.  The other remarkable bargain was the left behind Blue Hills whose membership was $90.  The greens fees were $10.  Unable to recall the new name for the course, I attempted to chase it down without success.  The Blue Hills website fails to recognize its origins, a bit of seeming snobbery in view of the now course-less Blue Hills Neighborhood of affordable housing and where the streets are named after jazz greats.

If it's possible for a man to be in love with a golf course, Bill Bates was that man.  Infatuation is not a strong enough word and Bill's deep and abiding affection was touching.  Even when the new course was completed in all its magnificence (it is called by many the best K.C. links today), he preferred to play the old course.

The four of us saw a fair amount of other courses including the south side's Hillcrest and our tendency there was to play very early in the morning to beat the often intense heat; a companion factor, perhaps of greater import, was the course's modest 19th hole featuring inexpensive beer.  Our enthusiasm peaked late one morning that extended way into the afternoon when the four of us wafted 64 16 ounce rascals.  We kept track of our tippling by stuffing each round's empty cups into four mounting stacks.

We all managed to impair our marriages that day and in one case irreparably.  It was Barrington's whose ended shortly thereafter with Hanger eventually marrying Jay's ex-spouse.  If memory serves, it was the day of the great quaff that Hanger made the second of consecutive eagles on the second hole, in each instance holing out a six-iron.  Hanger, easily the best golfer among us, accomplished his feat on succeeding Saturdays and it may have been that our drinking began in celebration of it.  

Barrington and I would hook up in Los Angeles when I was transferred there in 1966.  Jay was teaching sports celebrities, including Los Angeles Dodger Maury Wills, how to work with the media.  More anon about Jay whose second wife once tossed all his clothes out of a room at what is now San Francisco's Westin St. Francis Hotel.  That last thought, whose construction includes references to both  name and clothes dropings, may be a first for me.

Memories came flooding back when I googled the Hillcrest website and found a lede paragraph drawing attention to the course's signature hole, the 243 yards first.  I mention it because, following our 16th round of beers, we decided to tackle the course again.  Details are a bit beclouded but I seem to recall a general inability to coordinate the golf swing in addition to entangling my golf cart with Bates' bag carrier.  There were claims I did the latter twice while managing to win the hole with an 11.  We played no further.

One Saturday in 1964 found us playing what was then the world's longest course, according to the Guinness Book of Records.  The accurately-named Dub's Dread was designed for masochists by touring pro Harold "Jug" McSpaden in Wyandotte County--just west of Kansas City and close to Monticello where he was born.

Dub's Dread had little character other than being very long.  My recollection is that there were few trees.  The course, then of 8,204 yards, today is a cut-down version of 7,224.

McSpaden was one of the best on tour winning 17 tournaments.  In 1949, when Byron Nelson finished first a remarkable 19 times, McSpaden won none but was runner-up 13 times.  They finished 1-2 so often they were called the Gold Dust Twins.  Ten years earlier playing with Nelson in a warm-up round for the Texas Open, he shot 59.  It was Nelson and McSpaden who invented the golf shoe.  Their take was 25 cents a pair.

Nelson and McSpaden remained friends up to McSpaden's death by carbon monoxide poisoning in 1996.  He was 87 and there is no evidence suggesting his demise followed a bad round at Dub's Dread although the course's location remains within a short drive of where he lived all his life except while on tour.

Commenting about his pal, Nelson told the Associated Press: "I feel like I've lost a wonderful friend.  We never had an argument in all the time we played together."  McSpaden once told him: "If you wouldn't have been born, I'd have been known as a pretty good player."

Dub's Dread, while longest no more, is acclaimed by people who care about such things as the course that inspired other 8,000 yards links.  McSpaden's creation, it must be emphasized, occurred in the pre-titanium era when a course of 1,000 lesser yards was considered long.  It wasn't long before The International Club in Bolton, Massachusetts came up with The Pines whose 8,325 yards still plays to a punishing par of 73 from what are called the "Tiger" tees so named well before Tiger Woods' birth.  Lesser challenges may be found at members' tees where the yardage is 6,547.

A bit smug about "longest leadership," The International people have had to move aside for The Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Golf Club located in a very mountainous region of Yannun Province in China.  At first glance, it appears the course's scorecard must be a mistake of some kind; its par is 72 although it plays to 8,548 yards from the back tees.  Among the par 5s is one measuring 711 yards plus two others that exceed 600 yards.  There are five par 4s longer than 500 yards.  That's the bad news.

The good news is that the ball flies 20 percent further at Jade Dragon Snow Mountain's 10,000 feet of elevation than, say, at Dub's Dread.  For golfer's there's nothing quite like elevation redemption as a rationale for playing Jade Dragon.  Still, that 20 percent of extra length gets the yardage down to a reasonable 6,839.  Let's tee 'em up and don't forget the oxygen.

Appearing to be a threat to Jade Dragon was the El Grande Hombre, an 8,600 yard marathon announced for Las Vegas in 3003.  Judging from the way the Sin City economy is going, the last thing Las Vegas needs is 8,600 yards of golf course--still on hold.

Reflective of the many bizarre moments available at the Nullarbor Links is the Dingo Den hole where a resident crow is prone to stealing golf balls.  The Dingo Den is part of the world's truly longest golf course located on the southwestern outback of the country.  So long is the course (848 miles) that it is spread over two states, South and Western Australia.  Holes average 50 miles apart.

It is the vast emptiness of the area that got promotion-minded Aussies thinking about the tendency of motorists to hurtle down the Eyre Highway never bothering to stop, take in some sights, and, just maybe, spend a little money.  That was five years ago and this fall the Fourth Annual Chasing the Sun Golf Festival will be held.

Seven holes are on existing courses while 11 were built at roadhouses.  While The Masters course has a tradition of naming its holes after flowers and shrubs that lend to the majesty of Bobby Jones' masterpiece, the Nullarbor (Latin for "no trees") Links has been inspired by outback landscape resulting in such tests as Watering Hole, Oyster Beds, 90 Mile Straight, Border Kangaroo, and Golden Horse.

Plans are already underway with the tournament set for September 30-October 6.  Last year 50 golfers participated and an even larger field is expected this year.  Surprises are being arranged at the formidable Cocklebiddy's Eagle Nest hole in addition to the highly challenging Fraser Sheep's Back.  Greens at the roadhouse holes, some made of AstroTurf, others of sand and oil, await golfers with fairways in their natural state.  The world's longest golf course is appallingly arid with grass almost as rare as a wink-less Sarah Palin.

More than 2,500 have played the Nullarbor Links so far.  Should you decide to tee it up, keep a sharp lookout for snakes, wayward wombats, and kangaroos.  There's a road sign at the Cockleberry hole indicating the human population is eight, kangaroos: 1,234, 567.

You might consider hitting cheap or cut balls at Dingo's Den where the crow hangs out.

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Waiting for Gojoe....by Bob Sanders

Timing, as the saying goes, is everything and that undoubtedly explains my recent series of failures to find Joe Scarborough on his "Morning Joe" television show.

Slotted on MSNBC beginning at 3 a.m. (PCT), the three-hour program is my Plan A when I find a return to sleep challenging.  Searching for Scarborough has been something like "Waiting for Godot," Samuel Beckett's absurdest play in which nothing happens while the main characters anticipate the arrival of Godot who never appears.  Let's call my Joe no show "Waiting for Gojoe."

The interruptions of my sleep were occurring about every fifth night or so.  Scarborough simply wasn't showing up whenever I flipped on "Morning Joe" and there were a number of possible reasons.  Had the former Florida U.S. Congressman returned to hometown Pensacola preparatory to running for public office?  Never in memory has any former politician shown greater evidence of a longing for, in his case, those good old days featuring Newt Gingrich as House Speaker and his Contract With  America--proudly signed by Scarborough.  What a contrast with today; yesterday's Contractors, who screwed things up, have been replaced by today's Tea Party leaving in the dust such forever pols like Scarborough whose evidence of GOP loyalty consists largely of trumpeting the triumphs of Ronald Reagan.

There were other possibilities for Scarborough's absences including a resumption of talks with CNN or CBS regarding a move away from MSNBC.  The original rumors came last year on the heels of "Morning Joe" executive producer Chris Licht's leaving NBC to take over the always foundering "Morning Show."  Self-serving like most rumors of its kind, they coincided with contract negotiations involving the major "Morning Joe" hosts.

Those devilish contracts nearly ended Joe and Mike Brzezinski's show about a year after it began in 2007 when Mika learned Joe was making 14 times her salary.  There were a number of factors involved including Joe's positioning as producer plus Mika's having joined NBC after being fired from CBS.  A then recent book published by her with the title, Knowing Your Value, was a bit awkward and she successfully battled for a re-worked contract after producer Joe, the guy who underpaid her, casually gave her one of his paychecks.  Joe, obviously, didn't want to lose Mika.

Another plausibility for Joe's no show might involve that very odd intern death back in Walton Beach, not far from Pensacola.  Had the cops finally come up with some answers to questions about Lori Klausutus' mysterious death 11 years ago?  Klausutus, 28, a Scarborough employee, was found in the congressman's office early one morning.  The shoddiness of Florida police work was no better then than the current Trayvon Martin shooting death in Sanford.  The cops all too quickly determined that Klausutus, a long-distance runner in outstanding condition, had fainted striking her head twice on a desk.  The cause of death, heart arrhythmia, was determined by a discredited medical examiner apparently incapable of wondering how a head could strike a desk twice.

Scarborough, scornful of the media these days, back then also was publisher of the Redneck Riviera's Independent Sun and he quickly resigned his ties to the newspaper and his seat in Congress.  The man people now refer to as "Morning Joe" had initiated divorce proceedings two years earlier from a wife of 13 years.

A much more likely reason for Scarborough's disappearing act would be occasional guest appearances by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mika's father and national security adviser during the Carter administration.  Do not invite Zbigniew and Scarborough to the same party.  The latter plays smart ass to a man who treats the show's host much as an un-wanted son-in-law.  Their relationship peaked late in 2008 when Brzezinski called him "stunningly superficial" for his assessment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Brzezinski's umbrage was very reminiscent of Jack Paar's Alexander king, maybe the best TV guest ever.

"Morning Joe," close to celebrating its fifth anniversary, has strange origins even for television and began with Brzezinski doing a news segment from beautiful downtown Secaucus, New Jersey for Scarborough, then hosting a failing "Scarborough Country" program from Florida.  Informed by friends that Mika had used mocking tones about "Scarborough Country" during her feed to the show, Joe was intrigued, looked her up and, as they say, it was just a matter of time.  That time came when Don Imus, host of "Imus in the Morning" and the prior occupant of the "Morning Joe" time slot, was fired for making insensitive remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team.  We can measure the true power of a broadcast personality on the basis of whether or not they get fired for serious indiscretions.  Imus was gone quickly for what was paltry compared to Rush Limbaugh's recent disgraceful series of rants leveled at a female law student.

Keith Olbermann, who left MSNBC last year for the Current Channel, continues to suggest that Scarborough's sharp elbows are being thrown all over NBC as he challenges credentials of guests on shows other than his own, now augmented by a talk pack of nearly 30. 

There is an odd chemistry, not yet fully realized, that exists between Mika and Joe.  The fractious relationship of "The Odd Couple" has been suggested more than once although it seems to this viewer that whatever magic exists is much more reminiscent of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn although Trace rarely did the kind of off-putting body language now so seemingly intrinsic to the Scarborough persona.  Arms across the chest, Scarborough seems committed to sweaters and other casual attire to set himself off from the guests, regular and otherwise, who bring to the table far too much about politics--particularly the strange people who have been attempting to unseat President Obama.  Third host Willie Geist seems to be on board mostly to keep beady-eyed Joe from running roughshod over Mika.

Of late, the political pickings have been so sparse that clothing worn by regulars and guests has been seized upon as slim and obvious subject matter.  Three hours a day is a long, long time.  Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post and clearly a sartorial dandy, was a bit put out recently by show regular Mike Barnicle whose clothes might best be described as the kind of go-to-hell casual worn by far too many men in Bellingham, Washington, a serious candidate for dress down capitol of this country.  I know about these things because I live there. 

With my sleeping habits much improved during very recent days, I have managed to note that Pat Buchanan is no longer a "Morning Joe" regular.  Pat, who has managed to maintain guest status on the decibel impressive "The McLaughlin Group," recently dashed off a book in which he finally put in writing what he has been saying for many years: he's an out and out racist.  Good luck with the book, Pat.

Other people have come, gone and, in one case, come back.  The comebacker is Mark Halperin who got cut from the talk team last year when he called the President a dick.  To be perfectly accurate, the quote was "sort of a dick the other day."  Poor Obama gets blamed for everything: gas prices, wars, being a Muslim (according to one poll, 52 percent of Mississippi residents believe so), a questionable birth certificate (45 percent of Republicans are birthers), and, probably, bad asshood for putting a hex on second-seeded University of Missouri by picking the Tigers to be one of March Madness' final four.  Missou was knocked off in the first round by 15th seed Norfolk State.

The dick caller returned to "Morning Joe" after a month's banishment and everything, as my dad used to say, is copacetic.  A Time senior political analyst, Halperin is co-author of Game Change with fellow "Morning Joe" regular John Heilemann.  It's an inside look at what went wrong when John McCain and others decided to put Sarah Palin on the 2008 GOP ticket.  Made into a feature length film, it is currently playing on HBO.

In truth, Halprin should have received a stiffer sentence than a month's dismissal not so much for disparaging the President but for being so inaccurate with political predictions.  Among his gaffes: insisting that both Palin and fellow lightweight Donald Trump were serious GOP ontenders; suggesting that McCain's mid-campaign week's return to Washington "won the week" for the Arizona Senator, and just about any crystal balling found in his (2006) book, The Way to Win.  Co-author John Harris, co-founder of Politico, has to share the blame for that turkey.

Halperin's castigation that morning of the President created a momentary pall upon the show's usual cocktail party atmosphere (Starbucks served, of course) with Scarborough expressing agitation that a new producer was unable to activate a seven-second delay.  Such are the vicissitudes of broadcasting when a producer can't punch the right button.

The essence of "Morning Joe," clubby yet rife with the distinct possibility of someone walking in off the street to take exception to Scarborrough's brand of conservatism heavy with wish for the halcyon days of Reaganism, may very well be on the right track.  The challenge is that the rigors of doing it three hours a day for five days a week may wind up boring the hell out of viewers but that would have happened by now.  "Morning Joe," with less than half the audience of the hardly scintillating "Fox & Friends," continues to stay ahead of CNN in the time slot.  Certainly, the casual roundtable banter is a welcome contrast to the all too traditional panel stuff seen in short segments on "Meet the Press," "This Week," "Fox News Sunday" and "Face the Nation," soon to expand to 60 minutes.

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Sarah Revisited....by Bob Sanders

 

Anyone who thought Sarah Palin was simply going to disappear from public consciousness has been convinced otherwise by two cable films during recent days.

The first, "Game Change," debuted this past weekend on HBO and it must have been tempting to those responsible for creating the film's trailers to borrow from the marketing maneuvers of Jack Nicholson's 1980 "The Shining."  Yes, Sarah is back.

Perverse pleasures admitted, this viewer has missed Palin and it may very well be due to the obvious contrasts she offers to the rag tag collection of politicians who for far too long have flailed away at nailing down the Republican Party's presidential nomination.  Mitt Romney, challenged by Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul, simply can't make the sale to a party base moved to the right somewhere in the general vicinity of Attila the Hun.  All this, of course, has come after semi-final rounds during which we were introduced to the strange campaigns of Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, and poor Jon Huntsman, he of the nice-guy-what-am-I-doing- here? persona.  Never in the past 100 years of the election process has the American public been confronted by such a collection of boring possibilities.  Never has the other party been given such a leg up while 20 debates put audiences to sleep.

Palin's remarkable selection as John McCain's running mate is the focal point of "Game Change."  The film is based upon the best-seller by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.  Palin, as played by Julianne Moore, initially is drawn as a sympathetic character decidedly over-matched as McCain's advisers determine she is a logical choice as the Arizona Senator's running mate.  Moore's portrayal of Palin invites comparisons to the wickedly funny Tina Fey impressions on "Saturday Night Live."  As good as Fey's you-betcha takes were of Palin, Moore's provide much greater insight as we experience her strengths (connecting with crowds) to her weaknesses (foreign affairs about which she knows next to nothing).  It is through Moore 's nuanced performance that we see the many Palins: fragile, sullen, magnetic, and vain.  The pit bull mom may not have much upstairs but she appears to have a vast collection of hockey jerseys.

Woody Harrelson, as campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, gives another outstanding performance as he moves from enthusiasm for Palin to a realization that five days were simply not enough time to vet the Alaska governor.  Ed Harris is splendid while offering a compassionate portrayal of McCain.  Harris and Harrelson, both compiling impressive bodies of work, have become two of our very best film actors.

What is particularly intriguing about "Game Change" are the sympathetic roles played by the advisers who, much like race horse bettors given a sure thing in a four-horse race, are aghast as their filly stumbles out of the gate and at all the turns.  Often with media backgrounds, advisers in a political story are people in the shadows, rarely gaining audience rapport or even interest.  Senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, played by Sarah Pauley, bears the brunt of Palin mistakes and malice; Schmidt's "explanation to Palin about the why of not allowing her to give a concession speech is a classic.

Something quite different in Palinology may be observed in "The Undefeated," like "Game Change," inspired by a book.  Going Rogue, "written" by the then jobless governor having fled Juneau, was Palin's explanation of how things happened.  The bad show business people, led by Bill Maher and Matt Damon, are introduced.  The best line is that of ex-New York mayor Ed Koch who, in describing Palin as "plucky, perky," then adds, "and she scares the hell out of me."

First viewed last July, the documentary comes off as an infomercial rather inexpertly cut on somebody's dinner table.  The guilty are director/writer Stephen K. Bannon and the late Andrew Breitbart whose producer credits are augmented by appearance snippets enabling the audience to better understand Palin's brilliance.  He is joined by conservative talk show host Mark Levin and others as the banal product unwinds providing explanation of the box office failure following theatrical release.  It is currently playing on the ReelzChannel as what can only be regarded as a curiosity piece.

One of the reasons for it being a curiosity is its frantic pace and helter-skelter use of very low grade digital video of a lesser quality than YouTube.  Be assured that when the bad guys are offered up as depraved contrasts to the self-appointed mama grizzly, you can count on either stock footage of good old boys in a smoke-filled room or an incessantly brooding film score.  The feel of much of the material is that it is a collection of out takes clipped from promotional film shot for "Sarah Palin's Alaska" whose run on The Learning Channel mercifully has been completed.  There are always re-runs for the Palin-addicted.

Another of the oddities of Bannon's love letter to Palin is the paltry amount of time spent on the presidential election although her considerable triumph, an acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, gets a lot and it's Sarah at her best, by golly.  John McCain is barely recognized.  Hardly a master of subtlety, Bannon tells us that government is wasteful, then gives us three shots of money swirling down a toilet.

We never see Palin inThe Rogue: Searching for Sarah Palin, Joe McGinniss's wickedly amusing and sometimes frightening six months spent living next door to the remarkable woman who threatened to become a heartbeat from the Presidency.  McGinniss is not new to Alaska having researched the critically acclaimed Going to Extremes  there in 1977.  McGinniss does make it clear that, in his opinion, the Palinized Wasilla and much of Alaska is full of people thoroughly fed up with Palin.

In an unusual bit of good fortune, McGinniss, having determined that Alaska's most famous resident was worth a book, was offered a rental next door to Palin.  The mere beating of such odds strongly suggests Palin has a lot of enemies in Alaska in general and Wasilla in particular.  In investigative journalist fashion much more Confidential  than New Yorker, McGinniss gives us Sarah: having a fling with an NBA basketball player; doing drugs back when with First Dude Todd; coming up with easily doubted stories about the birth of son Trig suggesting she is not his mother; and as being committed to religious control of government in spite of not being sufficiently devout.  Oh, yes, the Palin family in all its dysfunctional glory is on board and, as described by McGinniss, not pretty.

She may be guilty of all his charges but McGinniss weakens his case with a disconcerting bitchy quality to his reportage and there are far too many stories told by "a friend," "one resident," and "a former resident."

On the other hand, if only one-quarter of McGinniss's stories can weather a scrutiny closer than the author's he said, she said conclusions, then Sarah Palin is, indeed, one of our major oddities worthy of the Koch quote about scaring the hell out of us.

McGinniss strikes just the right note with his last two paragraphs: What should never have been more than a freaky sideshow performed on a carnival midway was transformed by John McCain's desperation into what many still seem to see as the greatest show on earth.

Actually, it's long past time to strike the tent.

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Jamie & Lenny....by Bob Sanders

 

At first glance, Jamie Moyer and Lenny Dykstra have a lot in common.  Both have played major league baseball, both are 49, have worn World Series rings and each bats and throws left-handed.  For good measure, you could add relatively high round drafts that eventually brought them to the big leagues.  Moyer was claimed by the Chicago Cubs as the 135th pick of the 1984 amateur draft while Dykstra was signed in 1981 by the New York Mets as the 314th selection.

On the other hand, their contrasts are vivid--particularly in view of recent media coverage.  Moyer pitched a couple of spring training innings for the Colorado Rockies.  He gave up one run and three hits while making 42 pitches of which 27 were strikes.  None were modest cut fastballs whose eventual unleashing is on hold.  Moyer had Tommy John elbow-tendon replacement surgery 20 months ago.  If he makes the Rockies roster, it will be with a team that didn't exist when he made his major league debut with the Cubs in 1986.  If is a big word--particularly if you're sporting a Tommy John scar--and Moyer's 50th birthday on November 18 sets up some remarkable and attainable records should he still be under contract next year.  He will then (wearing number 50, of course) be second only to the remarkable Satchell Paige who was 52 when he was a starting pitcher in 1958.

While Moyer was trying to catch on with the Rockies, Dykstra was adding another chapter to a post-career downward spiral by being sentenced to three years in a California state prison.  The charges: grand auto theft and giving a false financial statement.  The sentence was the latest in a series of financial misadventures and worse during which he attempted to create a financial empire whose underpinnings bore great resemblance to his reckless approach to baseball.

With a net worth estimated at $58 million in 2008, Dykstra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy the following year.  Having less than $50,000 in assets against liabilities of somewhere between $10 million and $50 million, Dykstra claimed he was a victim of mortgage fraud and lost a home valued at $17.5 million.  It had been purchased from hockey great Wayne Gretzky.  By August of that year, Dykstra was living out of his car and hotel lobbies.  A second home, also in the tony Sherwood Country Club of Thousand Oaks, California, was in a deplorable state complete with a degree of littering often associated with ball park conditions following games.

I was a Bleacher Bum when Moyer first pitched at Wrigley Field.  That was in 1986, one year after Dykstra came up to the Mets.  A bit on the skinny side, Dykstra gave new meaning to the word "cocky" and later on was described by teammate Billy Beane as being "perfectly designed, emotionally" to play baseball while having "no concept of failure."  Dykstra played 14 years with first the Mets (1985-89), then the Philadelphia Phillies (1989-96).  His determined play (he broke a collarbone in 1991 by running into an outfield wall in Cincinnati) earned him the nickname "Nails" as in tough-as-nails.  A cheek full of tobacco added to the persona.

Those early 90s seasons, following his trade to the Phillies, were plagued by injury--not all of them on the field.  A second broken collar bone in 1991 occurred when, while driving drunk in a Philadelphia suburb, he crashed into a tree.  The next year on Opening Day, Dykstra suffered a broken hand when hit by a pitch.  As Johnny Carson might have put it, Dykstra was a "caution."

Just as popular in Philadelphia as New York, the center-fielder provided fans a "new" Dykstra as the 1993 season began.  With steroid rumors swirling about baseball, Dykstra's startling added bulk certainly didn't hurt as he posted a career year during which he hit 19 home runs (his only other double digit season was 10 in 1987), drew a league-leading 124 bases on balls, and made 773 plate appearances, still a major league record.  Although overlooked for the 1993 All-Star team, Dykstra led the league in runs, hits, walks, and at-bats while finishing second to Barry Bonds as NLMVP.  In spite of Dykstra's four home runs and .348 average, the Phillies lost the World Series to Toronto.

Dykstra has never admitted using steroids although Jose Conseco, the self-proclaimed "Godfather of Steroids," claims he did as does the Mitchell Report on steroid use in Major League Baseball.

Moyer first attracted attention pitching for Souderton Area High School in the Pennsylvania community where he also played basketball and golf.  He then pitched at Saint Joseph's University and completed his college degree at Indiana University 10 years after joining the Cubs.

While Dykstra's post-baseball life was spent building financial disaster upon financial disaster, Moyer continued a career whose total years now number more than half his lifetime.  It's a career based upon an intense knowledge of hitters and a precise control of mediocre pitches.  His fastball, averaging 81.1 miles per hour in 2007, was the slowest of all NL starters.  He has yet to resort to junk offerings including the eephus whose invention is attributed to "Rip" Sewell of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Known for a high arcing trajectory and slow velocity, the eepus (likely to have come from a Hebrew word meaning "nothing") has many nicknames including: bloop curve, the blooper, the soap bubble, the dead fish, the gravity curve, and the Bugs Bunny curve.  Should Moyer feel compelled to utilize such contrivances, the wily pitcher will doubtless come up with something effective.

Not content with a career of record-breaking proportions, Moyer and wife Karen impact the lives of thousands of children in distress each year through The Moyer Foundation whose establishment occurred when the pitcher was with the Seattle Mariners.  Winner of numerous awards for philanthropy and community service, Moyer citations include the 2003 Roberto Clemente Award, the 2003 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award, the 2003 Hutch Award and the 2004 Branch Rickey Award.

To put things in startling perspective, Moyer's father-in-law once suggested it was time Moyer got a real job.  The lefty had been sent down to Class AAA Toledo, a Detroit Tigers farm club.  That was 20 years ago and the father-in-law was/is Digger Phelps, whose baskeball coaching successes included Notre Dame.

Phelps' advice was four years before Moyer was traded to the Mariners where he won 145 games during nine seasons.  Since turning 40, he has won 103 times.  Thinking of retiring six years ago, Moyer accepted a trade to Philadelphia where he went 56-40.  Sixteen of those wins were in the Phillies' 2008 championbship season.

On Monday, Dykstra was sentenced to three years in a California state prison.  The charge was grand theft auto involving scams to lease high-end automobiles claiming credit through a phony business.  Dykstra is scheduled to stand trial this summer on bankruptcy charges.  Claiming he had only $50,000 in assets, Dykstra filed for bankruptcy two years ago indicating he owed more than $31 million.  According to Federal Prosecutors, the former ballplayer hid, sold or destroyed more than $400,000 worth of items from what had been his mansion without permission of a bankruptcy trustee.  Dykstra also has pleaded not guilty to indecent exposure charges for allegedly exposing himself to woman he contacted through Craig's List.  

There more to the Dykstra saga whose details strongly suggest he is an even bigger screw-up than either Dwight Gooden or Daryl Strawberry, also of the 1986 World Series ring-winning Mets.  According to the Wall Street Journal, a Beverly Hills pawnshop got $56,762 "to help pay the former major leaguer's $31 million debt."  Dykstra, the subject of articles in The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, also faces federal bankruptcy charges and is scheduled to stand trial this summer.  According to federal prosecutors, the former major leaguer hid, sold or destroyed more than $400,000 worth of items from the mansion once owned by Gretzky.

The New Yorker piece by Ben McGrath, titled "Nails Never Fails," appeared around the time the very odd Jim Cramer called Dykstra "one of the great men in this business."  If Cramer, of TheStreet.com, feels a heightened sense of camaraderie with the former major leaguer, it's probably because Cramer is to Wall Street what Dykstra was to baseball: an enormously brash and not very accurate talker.

Dykstra, the subject of at least two dozen legal actions since 2007, began a high-end jet charter company the next year.  That was in addition to Player's Club, a publication that was part of a business plan designed for athletes to help them contend with the challenges that accompany high salaries.  There was a website: "Nails Investments."

Not all of Dykstra's problems have been financial.  There was a charge, later dropped, of sexual harassment of a 17-year-old woman employed at his car wash, press reports that he had used offensive terms when speaking about Blacks, women and homosexuals, and an accusation of sexual assault by his housekeeper.  That was a year ago January and occurred a month after being accused of writing a female escort a bad check for $1,000.  Dykstra must, by now, miss running into those outfield walls.

Nails turns 50 in prison next February 10.  Moyer will celebrate his 50th this fall when at the very least he'll look back on a tryout he feels he had to take.  It was necessary not because of the 50 factor or because of Satchell Paige.  He's doing it because he knows he can still pitch.

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To put things in startling perspective 

Golf's Sometimes Bunker Mentality....by Bob Sanders

This is the time of year when golfers and those who follow the game on television begin thinking of The Masters, that grand competition set against dogwood and azalea on the best maintained course in the world.  If, by chance, you are planning on attending for the first time, be aware that the egg salad sandwich with pimento cheese is still $1.25 and security people will give you the goofy eye should you step somewhere you shouldn't.  The people who run The Masters are concentrated traditionalists in an ever-changing sport.

That tradition has included not keeping records for caddying in the tournament begun in 1934.  A game of record second only to baseball, golf has acquired all manner of information about the winners.  You could try to look up who carried bags but it's not in the books.  Only the winners are.

While many professional tour caddies today pay taxes as lower class members of the One Percent Club or are close to qualification, it wasn't always that way--particularly in those days when golf professionals were not allowed to enter country clubs by the front door, when black caddies carried the bags of the pros at The Masters, and when first place in the fournament produced a check for $500.  That's what Sam Snead won the first two times out playing Bobby Jones' creation, now a thoroughly revered site.  Snead's winnings today might buy a rather limited round of drinks for semi-intimates--a thought rarely, if ever, contemplated by the tight-fisted Slammer.

In spite of its lofty status in golf, The Masters took for many years a minimalist role in the sport's continuing evolvement.  Not inclined to participate in social engineering, the tournament refused to invite black players finally relenting in 1975 when Lee Elder became the first African-American to play for the green jacket.  That was three years after Elder requested consideration.

Only the course's black caddies carried bags of the pros until 1983.  The pros, eventually playing for prize money that even the NBA's vastly over-paid would find interesting, demanded that their personal caddies tote their sticks.  It made a certain amount of sense; the pro's caddy had intimate knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of his employer's game.  On the other hand, there is nothing quite like local knowledge and The Masters caddies had that in what we used to call spades.  A breakthrough year was 1970 when Gary Player's caddy received a death threat by an anti-partied demonstrator.  To the rescue came Carl Jackson, then a Masters caddy who volunteered to replace the threatened bag totter.  Jackson was so good with advice about the subtleties of August's greens that Player won.  This April, for the 51st time, Jackson will tote a bag at what many consider the biggest of the majors, another of those records not in the books.  For those who wonder just how much a caddy can mean to a player, be sure to check out the degree of involvement Jim Mackey has in boss Phil Mickelson's game.

While the most notable aspect of Masters' management over much of the event's history has been an attitude resembling that of pre-Civil War plantation owners, it was golf commentator Gary McCord who once explored the organization's lack of humor.  Bringing attention to the slick greens at August, the quick-witted former journeyman golfer suggested that the putting surfaces were so slippery that groundskeepers must have used "bikini wax" on them.  The imperiousness of the anger vented by the defenders of the golfing shrine toward the CBS employee was and remains severe.  Eighteen years later, McCord continues to be barred from The Masters which gave him an identification enabling him to charge upwards of $30,000 for personal appearances.

As the only sport in which players call penalties on themselves, golf has prided itself as the most honest of all.  While amateurs have been known to improve lies, whack unlimited Mulligans, and exhibit highly creative writing skills on score cards, the sport's professionals have remained remarkably un-tainted.  There have been notable exceptions but they tend to involve interpretations of rules.  One of the more recent embarrassments involved Tiger Woods whose cheating off the golf course a few years back was the stuff of Twitter and Facebook.  A sudden alliance of Woods' fans provided aid and comfort on the par 5 13th hole of the 1999 Phoenix Open, now aptly named The Waste Management Open.  Having pulled a drive into an untenable position beside a boulder roughly the weight of a particularly large NFL lineman, Tiger asked for relief and oh, what a relief it was.

Six Friends of Tiger, having heard the magic words "relief" and "loose impediment," completely ignored the spirit of the rule and rolled the boulder to a position that enabled the smiling Woods (he offered encouragement) to par the hole and, eventually finish third.  Today, the boulder bears a plaque telling of the momentous occasion believed by many Tiger fans as approaching Biblical proportions.

The tournament's rules persons, having given Woods a highly questionable favorable ruling, then were relieved of their explanatory duties by the PGA which, aware of Tiger's impact on TV ratings, conducted what can only be called a campaign of explanation highlighted by inclusion in a rule book by Arnold Palmer.  Yes, the boulder was a loose impediment.

The only woman professional golfer to be found guilty of cheating was Jane Blalock whose LPGA pals took exception in the mid 70s to her inclination to place a marked ball closer to the hole.  Regarded as a hippie by the 29 players who signed papers to dismiss her from the tour for one year, Blalock, one of the tour's more unpopular players, was also noted for drawing peace symbols of little artistic merit on her golf bag.  She confronted her suspension with a winning law suit. The charge against Blalock eventually was identified as being in violation of antitrust laws.

For those with a penchant for a look inside the ropes, there's a golf blog (Waggle Room) written by an LPGA caddie who in 2010 commented about the ethics of Korean lady players.  Detailed in the blog is a situation in which two of the Koreans misplayed each other's ball on the last hole of a round, then signed cards ignoring the indiscretion.  

With the advent of doping in sports has come the poster juicer of a sport heretofore left out of things.  The highly unlikely Douglas Barron, whose best finish has been a tie for third in the 2005 Byron Nelson Championship, was given a 12-months banishment in 2009.  The people who run golf and who are highly sensitive aboult those who fail to regard the sport as being mentionable in the same breath with  football, baseball and basketball, were hoping for a Davis Love III, Justin Leonard, or the they-should-be-so-luck, Rory Sabbatini.

Barron, whose "steroid" plight began with a needfor testosterone replacement (Testopel), has a body reminiscent of Craig "The Walrus" Stadler on a five pizza day.  Not exactly the Alex Rodriguez of his sport, Barron required 238 PGA Tour starts to get that tie for the bronze.

The golfer no one had ever heard of sat out most of the 2010 season, then had his ban lifted by the PGA in September of that year.  Having investigated the very lengthy World Anti-Doping Agency drug list, the PGA granted the golfer a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for testosterone replacement therapy.  Oh, the ignominy of it all in a port desperate for attention searching for bona fides.  The only winners appear to be the people who write about golf who no longer have to Google the name Doug Barron.

Oh, yes.  I'm delighted to report that Barron has acquired a sponsor--the highly logical Slate Pharmaceuticals, Inc. that markets Testopel.  The logo possibilities are extensive.

The subject of Pro Tour cheating was introduced by Golf magazine in January when 50 PGA Tour caddies were questioned about the pros--particularly if any had observed cheating.  Fifty-four percent answered "yes" while 44 percent said "no."  The rest would not comment.  At first glance, this seemed a condemnation of Pro Tour Players.

But, wait.  Maybe the 27 caddies were talking about players other than those for whom they carry bags; further, maybe many or all of those offering condemnation have in mind two or three golfers observed over 10 or 20 years of caddying and it's the same two or three being referenced.  Maybe, their indiscretions fall into the Blalock Syndrome suggesting they are psychologically unable to resist something like replacing a marked ball closer to the hole.

Good golfing news has arrived in the form of New Rules for 2012-2015 and it's tempting to take a Bill Maher approach to new rules.  The most significant change evolving from a collaboration between the Royal & Ancient (R&A) and the United States Golf Association (USGA) is helpful to those who might be victimized by wind.  As devotees may recall, it was Rory McIlroy who was penalized in the British Open when his ball was moved on the 7th green by the wind after he had addressed it.  Since wind, in a particularly strenuous case, also can be caused by flatulence, it is believed that golf's rule makers likely will continue to kick that one down the fairway.

While on the subject of the human body that continues to grow exponentially, it's worth mention that golf's rules people, once again, have ignored the belly putter.  However, it was exciting to learn that the Gecko Euro Pro Tour, a mini event in Spain, has banned the club in all future events although major tours continue a hesitant approval.  Two belly putter victories last year by Webb Simpson plus Keegan Bradley's win at the PGA (a major's first) have made the instrument one of much discussion.

The belly putter and its taller first cousin, The Broomstick, are essentially cheating devices of remarkable timing as we pursue our propensity for obesity.  The belly putter is decidedly more effective when the club's owner is of ample girth thus affording a greater fulcrum for the stick and subsequent delivery of the putt.

Of course, the very essence of golf, promulgated by equipment manufacturers, is to lower scores and we've seen a remarkable 30-year re-design of equipment to the point where pros who drive 250 yards have little chance.  Distance is too much of what it's all about thus enabling stars to carry three wedges.  Persimmon woods (how I miss that sweet resonant click) are a thing of the past and tees from which balls used to be driven are now called "tee boxes," an all too descriptive public course phrase now adopted in what be part of that public relations program mentioned earlier and designed to popularize the game, excuse me, sport.

Let me know if you've noticed any boxes at The Masters, Pebble Beach, or Pine Valley, will you?  Tee boxes are what they used to have at Dyker Beach in Brooklyn where a homeless guy lived in a patch beyond the second hole.  There was never a rumble with the guy mostly because he was armed.  The 14th fairway used to feature immigrants who picnicked and played volleyball on weekends.  They had little appreciation of golf.  That's where you find tee boxes.

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