When Gary Fumbles, Everyone Lets Loose
Thought for the day:
“All great backs fumble.”
--Wendell Tyler, Former Ram Fumbler And some others . . .
OK. Let’s get the Cleveland Gary jokes out of the way.
1. Cleveland Gary and Keith Jackson would be great at “Password.”
2. Cleveland Gary played baseball this summer in the Montreal Expos’ farm system. The scouts said he was good hit, no field.
3. 7-Eleven is Cleveland Gary’s fumbles-lost-to-total-fumbles ratio--not his future place of employment.
4. Cleveland Gary can break tackles but can’t hold onto the football. Gaston Green can hold onto the football but can’t break tackles. The Rams have the running back they need; they just don’t have the genetic engineering.
There. Good to get that out of our system. If Gary can get the fumbles out of his, everybody’s happy.
At 5-8, the Rams seem a lock for the franchise’s first losing season since 1972, discounting strike years. In 1972, the Rams finished 6-7-1 during Tommy Prothro’s last season as head coach. Since then, the Rams’ only other sub-.500 finishes have been the strike years of 1982 (2-7) and 1987 (6-9).
Ram MVP, if there is such a beast, ought to be Buford McGee. With fumbles, interceptions and defenses exploding all around him, McGee has been a lonely bastion of reliability. He leads the team with a 5.7-yards-per-carry average, is tied for second with Flipper Anderson with 41 receptions and ranks third in scoring with five touchdowns. He also pass-blocks by the textbook, covers on special teams and even throws the occasional touchdown pass--doing all the little things so many others have ignored in Anaheim.
One more difference between the ’89 Rams and the ’90 Rams: Last season, playoffs included, the Rams were 6-3 in games decided by a touchdown or less. This season, that record is 1-4.
And another: Last season, Jim Everett takes that extra play against New Orleans and finds Pete Holohan in the end zone for the winning touchdown.
And another: Last season, Everett takes the Rams right down and scores right after the Rams win the coin flip to begin overtime with Cincinnati.
Right now, those two games are the difference between the playoffs and playing out the string in 1990.
The Angels are still searching for a third baseman and some help in the bullpen, but the deal that could help them the most is out of their hands--free-agent Cy Young winner Bob Welch to either Detroit or Boston, which not only gets him out of Oakland but out of the division to boot.
Favor Detroit in the Welch bidding. Boston just spent $6.35 million on Matt Young (8-18) and if the Red Sox are paying by the victory, Welch would cost them $21.43 million. For three years.
Don Baylor, on the signings of our times: “Do you realize that in 1977, after I first signed as a free agent with the Angels, I had 25 home runs and 75 RBIs and everybody called me a huge disappointment? That’d be worth $2 million now.”
John Olerud, Roberto Alomar, Kelly Gruber, Manny Lee, Joe Carter, Devon White, Mookie Wilson, Pat Borders, Pat Tabler. Ladies and gentlemen, your 1991 Toronto Blue Jays.
If you’re a baseball general manager who reads newspapers, do you even consider signing Jack Clark?
At least it’s easier to see Tony Gwynn’s side now.
And why Clark is trying to hook on with his fifth team in eight years.
Don Andersen, executive director of the Freedom Bowl, reports that Oregon has sold 15,000 tickets and Colorado State 6,000 for Numero VII. Says Andersen: “You can see how important it is to us to get teams that are truly excited about being here.”
Add Andersen: “We took a survey (Monday) and found that Cal, which is playing in the Copper Bowl, has sold fewer than 1,000 tickets. USC, which is playing in the Hancock Bowl, has sold fewer than 1,000 tickets. And Arizona, which is playing in the Aloha Bowl, has sold fewer than 100 tickets.”
Of course, Cal, USC and Arizona have their reasons. Cal? Something about a boycott over Martin Luther King Day. USC? Let’s see, shall we spend the holidays in L.A. or El Paso? Arizona? Christmas in Hawaii sounds great; watching Syracuse-Arizona sounds less great.
Stewart Cliburn, who went 9-3 with a 2.09 earned-run average on little more than guile for the 1985 Angels, sounds like a good choice as pitching coach at Class-A Palm Springs.
Chapman College did the expected (lose by 33 points to LSU) and the unexpected (beat McNeese State) during last weekend’s swing through the state of Louisiana. “I was feeling kind of bad about the LSU game,” Chapman Coach Bob Boyd says, “but that was somewhat tempered 16 hours later when the No. 2 team in the nation, Arizona, couldn’t beat them, either.”
Boyd and his team watched the LSU-Arizona game on television before playing McNeese State Saturday night. During the broadcast, Frantz Reyes, the Panther assigned to guard Shaquille O’Neal on Friday, leaned over to Boyd and said, “I told you he was good, coach.”
Boyd on O’Neal: “He is bigger than he looks on TV.”
Boyd on playing LSU: “There were 12,000 fans there--the place wasn’t quite filled--and all of them calling us ‘Tiger Bait.’ None of our kids has gone through anything as scary as that. But at least they’re not going to be intimidated by Occidental.”
Greg Bell was never much of fumbler, was he?