baltimoreorgan.com

  It sounds crazy, but both Freddie Carter and Kevin Loughery are feverishly rooting that the record for futility (9-73) they shared as teammates on the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers will survive the current New Jersey Nets’ attempt to replace them as the worst team in NBA history.

  As of Sunday, following a decisive victory over the New York Knicks, it appeared the Nets, who lost their first 17 games, would avoid their date with infamy. The win boosted their sorry record to 7-53. They need only three wins in their remaining 20 games to surpass the 76ers’ long-standing record, and, as the regular season winds down, teams that have clinches playoff spots are more apt to rest regulars when playing New Jersey.

  In any case, Carter told us in a recent interview, “Immortality comes in so many different ways. It’s our record, and we earned it one way or another,’ added “Mad Dog,’. who averaged a team-high 20 points to become forever known as the best player on the worst team.

    Both Carter and Loughery, popular members of the old Baltimore Bullets in the late 60’s, laughingly noted that they are being re-acquainted with veteran reporters simply for the fact that their 76ers’ record is in jeopardy.

   “Why else would you be calling me?’’ said Loughery from his home in Atlanta. “It’s good to be remembered and talk to old friends, for better or worse.’’

    The two have a lot more in common than being former teammates in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Both Loughery and Carter moved on to become head coaches and longtime analysts on NBA telecasts.  But for the past few months, everyone wants to talk ancient history about the hapless 76ers of 47 years ago

  “We were the universal health spa of the league. We got everybody healthy,’’ cracked Carter, a Philadelphia native now living outside of Germantown, Pa. 

   Loughery vividly remembers a game against the talented Los Angeles Lakers, featuring future Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West, on their way to another 60-plus win season.

   They were toying with us,’’ said the Brooklyn native and St. John’s star.. “”Late in the game, they were racing down the floor on a 4-on-2 fast break.  Freddie and I were the only ones back on defense.  We looked at each other and I moaned, “Here they come…again. We had no chance.  We just weren’t very good.’’

The heat got turned up a few notches this past week with the governor’s race and in the Baltimore County executive’s race. The candidates have made some interesting moves, and the campaigns are getting into gear. With the primary election scheduled for September 14^th, less than 30 weeks from now, the races are gaining momentum and piquing more interest.

The Governor took a very quick 72-hour sojourn to Iraq and has returned already. The tab was picked up by the Department of Defense (DoD).  The DoD also set the timetable for the excursion. The official purpose of the trip was to educate and acquaint the Governor with the role of the Maryland National Guard and reservists who are stationed in Iraq. The trip had no frills attached and no ceremonial hoopla, and the Governor’s staff was not included so he traveled sans entourage.

No big deal and a relatively minor blip on the radar, until Bob Ehrlich announced on his WBAL Radio show, or as it is known by the common vernacular, “Radio Free Ehrlich,” that the Governor’s trip should not have taken place during the legislative session. The Governor should stay put in Annapolis according to Ehrlich’s Guide to Better Government. This shot fired by the once and wannabe future Governor garnered an immediate response by O’Malley’s surrogate, Lt. Governor Anthony Brown. Having previously served in Iraq, Brown dutifully defended the honor of his boss and laid waste to Ehrlich with gusto.

   While basking for the past month in comparatively balmy Amelia Island  (50 degrees) just south of the Georgia border, we found ourselves in close proximity to two major sports stories unfolding in the Jacksonville area.

    The first happening took place at the TPC Sawgrass Club in Ponte Vedra Beach where Tiger Woods, the sports world’s first billionaire, was staging his act of contrition for having extra-marital affairs with more mistresses than he can count on his fingers and toes.

     First of all, let us be clear that no self-respecting sports reporter should have elected to be part of this staged event in which no media questions were permitted. In fact, a vast majority of golf writers voted to boycott the affair that attracted an audience of family, friends, financial advisors and golf cronies. Oh yes, his betrayed wife, Elin Nordegren,  was conspicuous by her absence.

    There were some humorous sidebars to Tiger’s tearful plea for forgiveness that was carried live by every major network.  It was reported that Las Vegas betting parlors had posted the following wagers: 8-1 that he would announce his divorce, 12-1 that his wife was again pregnant, and 100-1 that he would retire from the world of golf.

   There were a few journalists outside the room that awarded Woods a gold medal for his performance. David Hiltbrand, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s TV critic, wrote Tiger “did it with powerful displays of emotion and a convincing air of sincerity.’

  To our skeptical eyes, the schmaltzy event was as rigged as Sarah Palin preaching the gospel to her “Tea Party’ stooges. Woods stressed his charity program for kids and warned the media and paparazzi to leave his wife and kids alone.

  Tiger would have been far better served if he had waited to hear the mea culpa by Akio Toyoda, the embattled president of Toyota who volunteered to come to Washington and answer the intense questioning of the House’s Oversight Committee

  .Speaking in both English and Japanese with the aid of an interpreter, repeatedly expressed deep remorse for deaths and injuries that resulted from malfunctioning Toyota cars. He voluntarily admitted that “our company’s priorities became confused in a quest for growth at the expense of safety concerns, adding that “when the cars are damaged, it is as though I am as well.’’

    A day later, talking to loyal Toyota dealers in America, he broke into tears for the harm he had done to the company founded by his grandfather.. It came across as genuinely sincere.

As we watch the Democratic Party continue to sit on its hands in Washington and squander away a super majority in record time, it has been fascinating to observe the Republicans take up the mantle—and the media attention—and begin splintering apart in less than two weeks. This GOP squabbling, finger-pointing, and re-writing of history are all things the Democrats have been accused of for years and rightfully so. What’s so astounding is how quickly the Republicans have adopted this hari-kari like behavior.

The newest elected Republican, Senator Scott Brown from Massachusetts, who just a few a weeks ago was the Republican golden boy, has been excoriated in the Republican/conservative press for the unforgiveable audacity of voting to allow the jobs bill to be discussed on the Senate floor and thus bucking the party line. Inexplicably, the GOP rallying cry of “Jobs, jobs, jobs” of a few months ago has been all but forgotten—let alone what the country needs right now. Turning common sense on its Congressional ear, Democratic Senators Bill Nelson and Blanche Lincoln both also voted against any further discussion of jobs and the bill.

Thankfully, the Senate passed the bill on Thursday with a 70-28 vote. A drop in the bucket for what is necessary to cure this country’s employment problem, but at least it’s a first step. To put things in perspective, the pared-down $18 billion price tag for the jobs bill is at least $2 billion less than what Wall Street is paying itself in bonuses right now. This is the same Wall Street that we gave close to a trillion dollars to last year because of their monumental errors in judgment and their near-failure.

Last Friday was an eventful day. Tiger had announced two days earlier he was coming out of his self-imposed exile and making a statement. No questions were to be allowed. This announcement came suddenly and it immediately became controversial. Since no questions were permitted and the room was to be stacked with the pro-Woods faithful, the establishment press spoke out.

Then, exactly on cue and with all three commercial networks covering this event, Woods appeared just as he had promised. He spoke from prepared remarks and got back in the game.  He put it out there, and it had to scare crap out of him. No wife Elin yet, and no definitive return to the sport. He fired his ammo and showed his disdain to the tabloid press for following his 2-year-old to her school, and he groveled to get his old lady back.

It was as naked as it gets, and when you are Tiger Woods there’s a requirement to perform at the top of your game. He was humbled, and he looked like he put on weight. He admitted to all of us that his downfall happened because he thought he was beyond authority. He claimed he was getting back into Buddhism, and he was going to renew his commitment to respect the tenets of the game of golf, since his on-course behavior was being criticized along with the scourge he’s dealing with here.

 At the end he got a big hug from his mother, who taught him well, as did his late father Earl. Earl was former Green Beret in ‘Nam. I think more than ever he misses his father, and he is still very much living in hurt hotel.  He once thrived on fatherly advice. The circus will leave town for a while, but it will return with Tiger doing his next high-wire act.  Let’s see how he compares to Karl Wallenda.

   It took only three victories in the qualifying round by the American hockey team for the talking heads at the current Olympic Games in Vancouver to stir up memories of the 1980 “”Miracle On Ice.’’ That, of course, immortalized coach Herb Brooks’ combination of over-achieving amateurs and collegians for their unlikely victory over  the powerful semi-pro Russians at Lake Placid.

    In retrospect, it topped just about everyone’s list, including ESPN and Sports Illustrated, as the biggest sports upset of the last century To which we say, hogwash. Everyone seems to forget that this was only a semi-final game in a round-robin format, and that the Americans still needed to beat Finland in the final to claim their highly-unlikely gold medal

   It was the political climate of the time that helped to immortalize the 1980 “Miracles’’.  If you recall, this was the height of the “Cold War’’

   In 1979, the Russians invaded Afghanistan. This prompted then President Jimmy Carter to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow and a number of nations followed suit.

    But If you’re a real hockey nut--which immediately eliminates me--the Americans actually scored a far greater upset a half-century ago in the 1960 Olympics at Squaw Valley. In fact, a film to commemorate the historic event was aptly named “The Forgotten Miracle.’  Before the hockey competition began, SI had picked the United States to finish last or, more appropriately, a snowball’s chance in hell. The powerful Canadians had won six of the previous eight Olympiads and were considered co-favorites with the defending champion Russians.