I doubt “The DiMaggio greatness,” no matter the “form,” at this point, was worried about a fine young Boston Red Sox player Jackie Bradley Jr., whose hitting streak was snapped at 29 games yesterday, breaking Joe DiMaggio’s record 56 game hitting streak.
However, the Boston Red Sox team record of hitting in 34 straight games by Dominic DiMaggio, was in jeapordy.
Nothing against Jackie Bradley Jr, but I am glad Dom’s record still stands, as he was not only a tremendous player, (not on the level of his brother, almost nobody is) but also an understated, classy individual.
Dom forged lifetime friendships with glorious Red Sox teammates such as Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky and Ted Williams.
Dominic DiMaggio on the left, Joe DiMaggio on the right, pictured above.
The Pittsburgh Penguins advanced to their 5th Stanley Cup Final, first since 2009 and ended a 5 game home, game 7 losing streak in the “Steel City,” as perhaps appropriately named, Bryan RUST, led the way, scoring both goals in a (2-1) victory vs the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Matt Murray stopped 16 shots, while Pittsburgh a victor in a home game 7 for the first time since the 1991 preliminary round vs the New Jersey Devils en route to their first title, (they are 3-1 in previous Stanley Cup finals) peppered Lightning goaltender, Andrei Vasilevskiy, who was outstanding in defeat, with 37 shots.
By the way, that prelim was Jaromir Jagr’s first playoff series. He had an overtime goal in game 2 of that series and incredibly, played in another preliminary round playoff series, albeit a losing one, 25 years later, about a month ago for the Florida Panthers.
As for the other Florida NHL team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, this time the failure to wrap up their semi-final series at home in game 6, proved costly, as they could not duplicate last year’s game 7 semi-finals road win at New York vs the Rangers. They are (2-2) in semis, all 7 game affairs.
Meanwhile, the Penguins move on to the Stanley Cup Finals vs the San Jose Sharks. Pittsburgh will be a series favorite with the action to begin Monday night in the “Steel” or should I say “Rust” city.
It was quite a performance by Bryan Rust in game 7, evoking memories of Maxime Talbot’s 2 goal brilliance, in an even bigger Penguins’ (2-1) game 7 win, in the 2009 Stanley Cup Final, won by the Penguins.
So what really changed after the two much hyped series between the N.L. East leaders, the New York Mets and Washington Nationals?!
In New York, the Nationals won two of three games, before the Mets won two of three in the just completed series in Washington D.C.
Going into play tonight, (Washington hosts the St. Louis Cardinals while the Mets are idle), the Nationals have a half game lead.
I will say this, that as with another Washington hopeful, Hillary Clinton, the Nationals could have and perhaps should have a bigger lead.
Kevin Love scored 24 points, making 8 of 10 field goal attempts, while LeBron James and Kyrie Irving added 23 points apiece as the Cleveland Cavaliers got their third home rout win of the series ripping the Toronto Raptors (116-78) in game 5.
Cleveland is a 6 point plus favorite to wrap up the series in 6 (games) and advance to a second straight NBA final. It would and almost certainly will be the sixth straight NBA finals appearance for LeBron James adding to his record for any non Boston Celtic. Bill Russell, coached by Arnold “Red” Auerbach in all of them played in 10 straight finals series, his Celtics winning 9 of them something Mr. James will never match, no matter how many times he jumps to other teams and gets to play in a discernibly (that is a mild word) weaker conference.
However, the reality is the Cavaliers not only will almost certainly be in the NBA finals but would have the home advantage vs the Oklahoma City Thunder, if they win their series vs the Golden State Warriors. “OKC” currently leads that series 3 games to 1 with game 5 at the Warriors’ home tonight.
Kevin Love, pictured here.
The San Jose Sharks, in their 24th season, (yesterday ESPN.com “reported” it was their 25th, sorry there was no NHL season in 2004-2005, thus this is the Sharks’ 24th season, their first was in 1991-1992), advanced to their first Stanley Cup Final series dispatching the St. Louis Blues in six games.
The Blues have now failed to make the Cup finals in all 45 of their seasons since riding the expansion NHL West to three finals appearances in as many years of that configuration (1968-1970). St. Louis has gone (0-3) in semi-finals series since that point.
That was the Sharks “semis” record going into this series but now San Jose is in its first NHL finals series which will begin Monday night as Memorial Day revelers drive, either in Pittsburgh vs the Penguins or at home in the so called “Shark Tank,” vs the Tampa Bay Lightning, depending on tonight’s game 7 result in Pittsburgh.
Joe Pavelski had the very important first goal while Joel Ward added the goals that made the score (2-0) and (3-0) as the San Jose Sharks built a (4-0) lead, allowed a “keep the T.V. viewers, phony, Blues “comeback,” before winning (5-2) in game 6.
Pavelski leads all playoff performers with 13 goals. Logan Coutore of the Sharks leads with 22 points. Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton are also long time Sharks’ players who deserve congratulations on reaching the NHL finals.
As was the case in game 3, the Oklahoma City Thunder, to this point easily the big story in either the NBA or NHL playoffs, scored 72 points in the first half en route to a rout of the 73 win Warriors in game four and now lead their NBA “semi” 3 games to 1.
Maybe 72 was a better number for a record breaking NBA team, as both the 1972 Los Angeles Lakers and 72 win Chicago Bulls set the NBA regular season mark for wins and never faced anywhere near the trouble Golden State is facing, and won the title.
Once favorites to win it all, the 73 win Warriors are roughly 13 to 5 underdogs and if they fail to repeat as NBA champions as now appears likely, but far from certain, the number 73 will evoke memories of the 1973 Boston Celtics, whose very impressive 68 wins are the most by a non title NBA team.
Yesterday the one and only Nathans celebrated its 100th birthday.
At the original Nathan’s at Coney Island in Brooklyn their inimitable hot dogs were available at the 1916 price of 5 cents.
I have many good memories of Nathans both in the distant past, a birthday party and relatively recently at the original in Coney Island.
Their french fries are “out of this world” delicious and there are many newer menu items from which to choose.
Maybe it was (birthday) #11 at Nathans for me and now (birthday) Number 100 for Nathans, here are to the memories past and future, to Nathans, a fun great place to be.
Nathan’s was founded by Nathan Handwerker and his wife, Ida Handwerker
The Pittsburgh Penguins built a (3-0) lead and won (4-2) at Tampa Bay, vs the Lightning in game 6, to force a seventh and deciding game in the NHL semi-finals/Eastern Conference finals on Thursday night in Pittsburgh.
Matt Murray, one day shy of his 22nd birthday, returned as the Pens’ goaltender and recorded the victory, getting help from coach Mike Sullivan’s successful challenge of an apparent Jonathan Drouin goal, which instead was ruled an offside play.
Thus instead of T.B. scoring first, eventually it was Phil Kessel (his 9th goal of these ‘offs to lead which leads the Pens) and the Penguins, who did so.
Incredibly or maybe not that incredibly, since the first goal/”wood” is so important in the playoffs, 10 of the 11 games in the “semis,” have produced results, in which the team scoring first won the game.
Sidney Crosby has all three game winning goals for the Penguins in this series, his goal making the score (3-0), getting the honor in this one. He also assisted on Kessel’s, obviously important opening goal.
Kris Letang, whose goal made the score (2-0) and Bryan Rust, whose nice breakaway goal insured the win, at (4-2) Pens, also had big goals.
All four Tampa Lightning semi-final series have gone to a decisive 7th game and for the second straight season the Lightning won game 5 on the road, but failed to close out their semi, instead losing game 6 at home. Last year Tampa Bay won game 7 on the road at New York, vs the Rangers.
Only three of the eight teams in the current NHL and NBA semi-final round have ever won titles in their current city. The Oklahoma City Thunder did win an NBA crown as the Seattle SuperSonics in the 1978-1979 season.
The defending champion Golden State Warriors , Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning have won titles while the Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors, St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks in addition to the Thunder in Oklahoma City have not.
Only in 1969-1970 when two semi-finalists were from the expansion, third year NHL West have there been less, in that case two of the 8 semi-final teams, that had never “titled.” Two of the six that had not won it all, the Los Angeles Lakers (they have won 11 in L.A. since that time) and Atlanta Hawks had won titles in their previous cities.
The Lakers had won 5 titles under the great coach John Kundla, led by George Mikan and Jim Pollard, as the Minneapolis Lakers (there are many lakes around Minneapolis not the case in L.A.).
Meanwhile the Hawks, who have not won a title since and never as much as made the NBA finals, going (1-16) in semi-finals tilts as the Atlanta Hawks, won the 1958 NBA crown as the St. Louis Hawks coached by the great Alex Hannum and led by Bob Pettit. They made two subsequent finals appearances while in St. Louis, losing to great Boston Celtics’ teams each time.
That year, 1969-1970 had established NHL teams, the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks in the semis but NHL West third year teams the St. Louis Blues, long defunct California Golden Seals and all 4 NBA semis teams, the New York Knicks, Milwaukee Bucks and aforementioned Lakers and Hawks had never won it all.
It is interesting that starting with that year’s New York Knicks’ title, 3 of the NBA teams sans title going into the 1970 playoffs won their first crown ever or at least in the current city in consecutive years, the Bucks in 1971 and Lakers in 1972.
My research shows that in 1994, 1998 and perhaps other years there were as few as three teams that had “titled” among the 8 semi-final teams in the NHL and NBA. From the NBA’s first season in (1946-1947) through the (1966-1967) season the NHL’s 6 teams all had won titles precluding the possibility of less than 4 teams that had won titles, in the combined NHL and NBA semi-final fields.
4 Notes, 4 teams in semi-finals and music would have been and is a better way to go.
Kyle Lowry scored 35 points while DeMar DeRozan added 32 as the Toronto Raptors again won at home to even their NBA semi-final series with the still heavily favored (roughly 10 and a half to one, in some ways 13 to 1) Cleveland Cavaliers at 2 games apiece.
The Raptors are now (8-2) at home in these ‘offs, the losses coming in series openers, vs the Indiana Pacers in the preliminary round and to the Miami Heat in the quarterfinal round.
Game 5 is in Cleveland, tomorrow (Wednesday) night where the Cavaliers (6-0) have yet to lose in the playoffs, the only one of the 32 NBA and NHL playoff teams that can make that claim.
Andy B Sports 