SO, Mike Tyson fights Evander Holyfield and takes a chunk out of the champ's right ear. You expected more
from Mike Tyson?Hey Mikey! He likes it!
And half the world it seems -- including our president, whom I would think has more pressing matters to worry about -- is horrified.
I don't understand it.
Let's take a little trip down memory lane:
In 1978, little Mikey Tyson is arrested for purse snatching. He is 12 years old.
Ten years later, little Mikey is the heavyweight boxing champ of the world. He is married to actress Robin Givens, who admits in a television interview that she fears her husband.
Tyson admits in various publications that he has an affection for violence during sex.
Four years later, little Mikey is found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of deviate sexual conduct after he takes a misguided yet innocent candidate in the Miss Black America Pageant back to his hotel room.
This is a man with more than a few screws loose. A guy who once admitted that he'd like to hit his oppenent hard enough to knock the unfortunate's nose back into his brain.
Shoots, Don King dished out 65 million donuts to little Mikey and Evander the Holy so knuckleheads could shell out 50 bucks a pop to watch the two try to send each other to the doctor's office. And if it's to the neurologist, so much the better, right?
As the old saying goes, a fool and his money are a good party. At this party the fools were on both sides of the ropes.
SPEAKING of foolishness, every spring a baseball player starts out hotter than a habañero and the national baseball press falls all over itself doing the arithmetic. Mighty Casey (or Junior or Tino) is on pace to hit 94 homers, they cry. Guaranteed Roger Maris' record will fall this year. The pitching is watered down and the parks are smaller and the players are bigger and stronger nowadays.
Ken Griffey Jr., who is probably the best player going these days, ripped a bunch of homers in April and May, firing up the latest round of speculation. His numbers have tailed off somewhat since then.
What the so-called experts always seem to forget is that to hit 61 home runs a player must average 10 home runs EVERY MONTH for SIX MONTHS and then hit another one somewhere along the way.
If bigger and stronger had anything to do with prodigious home run numbers, Frank Howard would have hit 60 by the All-Star break every other year. He was Herculean, the only player I ever saw hit a ball into the picnic area at Met Stadium -- a 500 foot shot.
What Maris had was a sweet stroke. He wasn't bigger, stronger, faster. He was 6-foot, 200 pounds. Roger was a ballplayer, first and last, not a shoe huckster or a soft-drink salesman on the side.
Griffey? He has a beautiful stroke. I'll never forget the first time I saw him take batting practice. It was at Tempe Diablo Stadium, the former spring home of the Mariners. Two things stood out, the loud crack of the ball hitting the wood bat, followed a couple seconds later by an almost equally loud crack of the ball hitting the wood fence. This guy is a great line-drive hitter.
The player with the best shot at Maris' record is Mark McGwire of the A's. He's a home run hitter, first and last.
A buddy and I were watching a Brewers-A's game one spring and Don Baylor came up with McGwire on deck. My friend says, "I think Baylor's going deep." I replied, "Nope. Baylor's gonna get hit by a pitch and McGwire will hit one out."
Well, Baylor gets beaned on the forearm and McGwire hits one about 475 feet up onto the grassy knoll behind the outfield fence.
Nobody hits bombs like McGwire, but even he'll be hard-pressed to stay healthy and focused enough for an entire season to hit 62 homers.
Rest easy Roger. Your record is safe for a long time.