Happy Tuesday everyone, here's my Top 5 for October 12, 2010 from Len Berman at www.ThatsSports.com.
1. Quick Hits
* The Giants win the Division Series, The Giants win the Division Series. They beat the Braves in 4 games and will face the Phillies for the National League pennant starting Saturday.
* Braves manager Bobby Cox is cheered by Atlanta fans after his managerial finale. The Giants stop their on the field celebration to applaud him as well.
* The deciding game between Texas and Tampa Bay is tonight in St. Petersburg. 8:00pm Eastern on TBS. The Yankees await the winner.
* Some guys have all the luck. Actress Minka Kelly voted "Sexiest Woman Alive" by Esquire. Her fiance? Someone named Derek Jeter.
* The Jets (4-1) beat Brett Favre and Minnesota (1-3) last night 29-20.
2. Dodge Ball
Brett Favre bobbed and weaved after the game last night, and wouldn't address the allegations against him. He reportedly apologized to his teammates yesterday for being a distraction. In truth, isn't Favre always a distraction? Talk about a lightning rod. It's always about him.
Two other notes. A good friend of mine, a Top 5 subscriber, says the story about Favre making passes at Jets massage therapists is absolutely true. My friend used the same therapist a few weeks after it happened, and she confirmed it.
And the best line about Favre sending pictures of his penis to the Jets sideline reporter comes from Jack Finarelli in the Sports Curmudgeon: "Would that be considered the ultimate in junk mail?"
3. Pitching, Pitching, Pitching
Here we go. Count how many times you hear the word "rest" in the next several weeks. 4 days rest, 3 days rest. The Yankees don't want to wear out their pitchers on "short rest," so A.J. Burnett is in the rotation for the American League Championship Series. Yankee fans are gnashing their teeth over that one. But rest? In 1964, Bob Gibson clinched the World Series on 2 days rest. Sandy Koufax repeated the trick the very next year. And Cristy Mathewson won the World Series for the 1905 Giants on one day rest.
So over the next several weeks, when you hear about pitchers working with just 3 days rest, just think of the old line. "You can rest when you're dead."
4. Lemme In Coach
During Wimbledon, eventual champ Rafael Nadal was fined $2,000 for receiving coaching during his third round match. Now, he tells a Spanish newspaper that when he was serving for the match in the U.S. Open final against Novak Djokovic, he didn't know where to serve so he looked up to the box where his coach, uncle Toni was sitting. They "told him" to serve wide, so he did. In essence, Nadal is admitting he cheated. I don't condone it, but I wonder why tennis is the only sport, other than in Davis Cup play, where coaching is verboten? Then again, if coaching were legal, would insecure players ask where every serve should go? If that happened it would slow tennis down to baseball speed.
5. Multi-Tasking
Check this out.
It's not every day you see the high school homecoming queen in her football jersey and sash! In one hand a football helmet, in the other a tiara. Homecoming queen Katie Scalzo from Wyoming Area Pa. High school is a kicker on the football team. As for the homecoming king? He wore a tux. He's on the baseball team.
Happy Birthday: Former Yankee shortstop and announcer Tony Kubek. 74.
Bonus Birthday: Talented actor Hugh Jackman. 42.
Today in Sports: The St. Louis Cards beat the Red Sox in the 7th game of the World Series, as Bob Gibson (featured in my kids book The 25 Greatest Baseball Players Of All Time,) pitches his third complete game of the series, and also hits a homer. Both his 2nd and 3rd wins came on just 3 days rest. 1967.
Bonus Event: Chris Columbus lands in the "New World." Actually it was the Bahamas. 1492.
I'll be on America's Nightly Scoreboard on the FOX Business Channel tonight at 7:30pm.